Ephidel's Path
by LordEphidel
Summary: It was the first time that Elibe had seen dragons since the Scouring, even if the Dragon's Gate closed in mere minutes, taking the dragon with it. Yet he was not alone in his passage through the Gate.
1. Dragon's Gate

OPENING DISCLAIMERS

I own the rights to just about nothing here [even my original characters, as they are manaketes, which is in fact copyrighted], save for the precise combination of words that I use to tell the story, I suppose. That, of course, is excluding every bit of dialogue in this first chapter, which is, unfortunately, taken almost word for word from the game. This is not because I cannot think of better things for them to say, but merely because I refuse to contradict cannon if at all possible. Fear not; I assure you that this occurs nowhere else in this piece.

Chapter 1

Dragon's Gate

He saw the party approach long before they arrived, but he did not intervene. His master wanted them to bear witness, so he merely followed in silence, his sharp ears overhearing every word they spoke.

"We're here," said a red haired lordling, the infamous leader of the band. "The Dragon's Gate."

The dragon girl–the one who his master sought–walked beside him, but she seemed uneasy, hesitant even. As she should, of course.

"What's wrong, Ninian?" asked the man, drawing the party to a halt. "You're trembling."

"This place," she said, "so frightening. Something… powerful," trailing off into silence.

"It's her power, isn't it?" asked the Sacaen woman.

"Her power? What's that?" said an axe-wielding man in heavy armor as he crossed his arms.

"Ninian has the ability to sense impending danger," answered Lyn, resting one hand on the handle of the Mani Katti. "Her memory may be gone, but her power remains."

"What is it you sense, Ninian?" asked Eliwood urgently.

The dancer cringed and drew back, as though to flee. "I… should not have… come here," she whispered. "Something awful will happen if I'm here." She let out a whimper, paralyzed with fear.

"Ninian?" exclaimed Eliwood, grabbing her by the shoulder. "Snap out of it!"

"This place," gasped Ninian, "No, I… I."

"She's getting worse!" cried the Prince of Pherae. "Let's get her away from here!"

That was when he had to intervene; Lord Nergal would not have them leave. He warped into the midst of the party.

"You'll not be going anywhere," he said with a condescending grin. "That little bird has escaped this island cage twice. Now that she's back, she'll not be allowed to fly away again."

"Who are you?" yelled Eliwood.

"We meet at last," he said, quite amused by Eliwood's distress. "I am Ephidel. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"You're Ephidel?" spat Hector. "I've been looking forward to this."

"Gallantly spoken," he said supremely, purely to unnerve them. He had always had a talent of unnerving humans when he wished, even more so than normal morphs. "Of course, I know who you are. Marquess Ostia's younger brother, Lord Hector. And here we have Caelin's beloved princess, Lady Lyndis.

"By the way, the gift I left for you in the forest," his grin growing wider, "Was it to your liking? The corpse of that filthy red-haired traitor?"

"Monster!" yelled Hector, "Stay right there! I'm going to crush the life from you with my bare hands."

"Now I see," he said, even forcing a tinge of surprise into his voice. "She was an Ostian spy, wasn't she? Don't worry; she did not suffer. It only took one blow."

"Die!" bellowed Hector as he charged at the morph with his axe in hand.

Ephidel reacted calmly and efficiently. He warped behind the Ostian lord and beside Ninian, forcing a gasp of surprise from her.

"This girl is needed for my master's ceremony," he said.

"Ninian!" yelled Eliwood.

"Lord Eliwood!" she called as she pulled away from Ephidel.

He vanished again, utterly devoid of sympathy for her pleas to let her go. This time he reappeared deeper into the Dragon's Gate in order to instruct his pawns.

"Lord Ephidel," said Darin, "is the girl with you?"

Abominable human. "As you can see," he said aloud.

"Oho! The ritual can take place at last," crowed the noble.

"Yes," came the oily response. "However, we have an infestation of mice to deal with. They should be scurrying in here momentarily. They must be dealt with before the ritual takes place. May I entrust this task with you?"

"Of course. Who do you think I am? I am Darin, Marquess Laus! Ruler of this world!"

"Very well, I leave it to you."

"Ruler of the world," exulted Darin before breaking into insane laughter.

"Humans," mocked Ephidel, fully aware that the mad marquess was no longer paying him the slightest bit of attention. "They are so very fragile."

With that he vanished yet again with Ninian in tow to reappear before his master.

"Ah," said Nergal, "you've done well. Precious Ephidel. Shall we prepare for the ritual?"

It was not really a question, so Ephidel would not have responded even if the prisoner had not interrupted.

"Nergal," said Lord Elbert.

The spellcaster turned to look at the noble with a mocking gaze. "Does it gall you, Marquess Pherae? It's destiny. There could be no other outcome. Despite all of your mischief, the girl was fated to return to me."

"My son," said Elbert. "Where is Eliwood?"

"He's still alive," said Nergal indifferently. "Of course, it's only a matter of time before the Black Fang finishes him."

Elbert paused for a moment, glaring at his black-garbed foe. "Nergal!" he spat suddenly. "Prepare to die!"

Nergal was caught off-guard as the peerless swordsman rushed at him, but no matter. Ephidel's master was brilliant in every respect, so there was still a plan in place. Jaffar leapt out from the shadows and cut Elbert down with a single well-placed stroke of his blade. It did not kill the Marquess, but there was certainly no danger of him causing any further trouble as he groaned and fell to the ground.

"That was a surprise. When did he undo his bonds?" asked Nergal with a mocking chuckle. "Why do you not heed my warnings, Lord Elbert? You cannot alter destiny. Stop this foolishness."

The only response that he received was a bloody gurgle.

"Jaffar," continued Nergal, "take Marquess Pherae and the girl to the far chamber. I will begin preparations.

"Thy will be done," said the assassin before going about his task.

Nergal then teleported before the gate and Ephidel followed. His master began to recite the summoning incantations as Ephidel fed quintessence to the gate, though Lord Nergal was quite capable of opening it himself. But they were pressed for time; all the other morphs were indisposed as they spread the seeds of war across the continent so that even more quintessence might be gathered. They could not assist now, but Ephidel alone was still more than enough.

Or so it seemed. The two stood before the gate, now with Ninian and Elbert as well, focused on their incantations of fire and summoning, spittle and foam accumulating around their mouths as they muttered for over twenty minutes. The ritual was nearly complete when voices began to approach.

"Father!" said one. "Father? It's me! Eliwood! I've come to save you! …Father?"

"It's dark in here," said Hector, "Can't see a thing…"

"Eli…" gasped the fallen Marquess. "Eliwood."

Abomination. How was that human able to speak after suffering such a grievous wound? Both Ephidel and his Master were tied to the magics of the Gate, and unable to break free without totally abandoning the ritual. Lord Nergal began to shift the weight of the spell back wholly to himself so that the morph could deal with the intruders, but that would still take time.

"Father," called out Eliwood. "Where are you?

"Back there," said Lyn. "Eliwood! His voice is coming from back there!"

The three lords ran up the enormous staircase to get closer to Elbert's discarded body–closer to the Gate.

"Ah," sighed Eliwood. "Father. You… You're all right."

"Eliwood," rasped Elbert. "Wait! For-forget me! Take that girl and flee!"

"Ninian?"

"That girl. She's the key to the Dragon's Gate. Hurry! Go, before Nergal notices you!"

Eliwood seemed to come to his senses and heeded the advice. "Ninian! This way! We must flee!"

The dancer gave no response, for she too was bound to the Gate. Ephidel anxiously continued to mouth the incantations as he waited to be unbound himself.

"Something's wrong with her," said Lyn, "Yet we've no time to hesitate."

"Eliwood!" said Hector, "I've got your father! You take Ninian!"

"I understand!"

"Lord Elbert!" continued Hector as Eliwood worked to pick up Ninian. "I'm going to move you a little. Be strong."

"Hector," said Elbert, "you came, too? Thank you."

"Don't worry about that. Come, let's leave this place."

"Eliwood! Hector!" shouted Lyn. "Hurry! This way!"

She was cut short, however, for Jaffar finally decided to intercede. The assassin paused a moment to look over the party before speaking. "You will not pass here."

"When did you–" began Lyn.

"You must not fight that man," said Elbert, cutting her off.

"What?"

"That man," whispered Elbert, "is dangerous. You cannot defeat him on your own."

"Father, there's no time. The danger must be faced."

Finally, the bonds broke and Ninian and Nergal then became the sole individuals tied to the gate. Ephidel was free to deal with the intruders.

He appeared just before them again, taunting them as he so often did. "Be a good boy and listen to your father, young master Eliwood."

"Ephidel!" was all the prince managed to say.

"Even among the Black Fang," continued the morph, "this man is feared for his skill. You are no match for him, not even as a group."

He then turned to address Jaffar. "You've done well Jaffar. That is all. Return to Bern and begin your next assignment." The assassin was no longer needed, for Ephidel could hold his own against the three lords and their army if necessary. Regardless, his master was moments away from summoning an ally who could destroy them all with ease, and they were to be the first witnesses of the fire.

"Hear my word!" proclaimed the morph. "I have an invitation from my master. In honor of your hard-fought arrival he's prepared a special show for you."

"Stop it!" said Elbert with surprising strength. "You cannot release the dragons!"

"Father?" said Eliwood. "What's all this about?"

"You will know shortly," replied Ephidel. "At the expense of your father's life!"

Then he began to drain the quintessence out of Marquess Pherae, slowly feeding it to the gate through Ninian. It was such marvelous quintessence; Ephidel wondered if his master's own had looked like this those centuries ago before augmenting himself, though he doubted it. Elbert groaned with a deep grimace on his face as his life was drawn out of his body, though that was the only sign of his most recent suffering.

"Father!" said Eliwood, "What's wrong? Father!"

"Lord Elbert!" yelled Hector. "Hold on!"

Then Eliwood glanced up from his father to look at the dragon-girl before him. "Huh?" he said, "Ninian?"

She had finally risen from her stupor, but was now under the control of Lord Nergal. "Pow…pow…er," she gasped as she haggardly drew closer to the gate. "…Power."

Then Ephidel drew the final surge of quintessence needed from Elbert, eliciting an agonized scream.

"Father!" said Eliwood, his attention torn between Elbert and Ninian.

"Now, Ninian," said Nergal as he closed the spell. "At last. Open the Dragon's Gate."

"Gate," she repeated. "Open…gate."

The earth quaked from the great powers being called upon. The elder runes that had remained dormant for so long before Nergal had called upon them lit up. Slowly the gate beyond began to glow orange, and an immense presence filled the room.

"Yes," said the spellcaster as he felt the power rush out from the Gate, "that's it… This way, dragon…"

"Whoa!" said Hector, "What's… What's this rumbling?"

"I can barely keep my feet!" grunted Lyn.

"Nergal," yelled Eliwood. "What… What's happening?"

"Here," moaned Ninian, "Come, children of… flame. Come… to me."

Then the gap between the worlds of man and of dragon ceased to exist. The rumbling grew stronger and a crimson dragon burst through the gate in all its terrible might.

"It can't be," said Hector.

"No," sighed Lyn, "It isn't…"

"Is that… truly" said Eliwood, "a dragon?"

Nergal let out a maniacal laugh, his life's work complete after so many centuries. "Yes!" he jubilated at Ninian, "Use all your strength! Squeeze every drop from your body! You will call dragons!"

But the victory was short lived. "I will not allow this!" declared a voice.

"Who's there?" said Ephidel, turning about to locate the speaker. It did not take long. "You!" he spat.

"Nils!" said Lyn in relief.

"Ninian," called out the bard. "Come to your senses! You must not do what they want."

Did he not realize how stupid it was to tamper with the ritual? He was more likely to kill Ninian than save her if he sought to fight the elder magics of the Gate.

But somehow she began to break free, slowly at first, but she quickly gained enough momentum to actually speak. "Ni… Nils."

"Nils?" growled Nergal. "Not now! Ephidel! Stop him!"

"Desist, Nils," yelled the morph as he drew an elfire tome from his cloak, if only to scare him. "The power… It runs wild!"

Nils paid him no mind. "Ninian!"

"Nils?" started Ninian, returning to her senses.

"Here; hurry! The dragon is crumbling. Everyone flee!"

It was true. The dragon was indeed crumbling as Ninian broke away from the Gate. It was too late to save it. Nergal's face writhed in a rictus of hate to see what he had worked so long to create be destroyed in mere moments, and without another word, he warped away.

Ephidel, however, was not so fortuitous as to command such powerful elder magic himself, not without his master's aid, at least. And that aid was not forthcoming.

"Stop," called out the morph in a final, desperate plea. "You mustn't come here! Lord Nergal! Lord Nergal! Please!"

It was in vain, he knew, but really, what other options remained? The magic of the Gate was rushing back inward, pulling Ephidel with it, and he would only be safe if he warped away or the Gate was reopened. He knew and understood why the latter was not forthcoming, for those who closed the gate were his enemies, and of course would do nothing to help. He would do just the same in their position.

But why did his master refuse to lend him his aid? Warping was no great task for him, and Ephidel would surely prove no small asset as they sought to call upon the might of dragons again.

It was more than that, though: Ephidel was the third and final morph to know emotion. Kishuna was the first, but he was a failure, worse than useless. Sonia was simply ridiculous, trying to imitate those filthy humans before finally convincing herself that she was one of those rats. Unlike Kishuna, Ephidel could fight, and unlike Sonia, he always kept his emotions firmly under his control. He alone forced those meaningless feelings to have purpose, for nobody, not even Lord Nergal himself understood humans as he did. Wars began, lives were lost, and quintessence was gained from this understanding, and Lord Nergal had been pleased.

Why was he abandoned?

The Gate was pulling him with unbearable strength now, and it was that moment that Ephidel decided to stop resisting. He refused to live in the same world as one who would toss such brilliance aside on a whim, and one way or another, he would not have to. Either he would perish in the flames of the Gate, or he would find his own way to a new world. As he passed through the barrier, he hoped with a hateful grimace that it would be the latter, but if not, then so be it.

–––Author's Notes–––

The Author's Notes section contains absolutely no information required to understand the story, merely various details that you might find interesting. You can skip this section entirely and miss nothing essential. It will generally include the following information [in no particular order]

-explanations of my extrapolations from canon  
-etymology of original names  
-major edits that have been made since the original publication  
-credit to any sources that I used, even if only for inspiration  
-a request that you submit a review [because I do need them]  
-miscellanea as necessary

And now to actually begin the first Author's Notes section. This work is a tribute to my favorite and perhaps the most publicly underappreciated character in the game. Ephidel never struck me as being one to die so easily and I thought it somewhat ridiculous that he would cause so much misery for Eliwood/Hector for eight full chapters only to magically disappear without a battle.

And I say that he did indeed merely disappear, though others would disagree and say that he died. The scene in question is in fact quite ambiguous, the only adamant facts being that the Gate closed, and Ephidel and the dragon were gone. I suspect that we all know what I believe, and if your opinion differs, I hope you can ignore the fact for the duration of this piece.

As mentioned in the opening disclaimer, the dialogue is takes almost word for word from Blazing Sword Chapter 19: Dragon's Gate, though I did attempt to work around the general overuse of ellipses and exclamation marks that the chapter suffers from. I detest canonical discontinuity far more than the lack of control that I have over a character's speech. But fear not, I plan to have only one more chapter tied in with the actual events of Blazing Sword, and that will only be at the end. Unless I change my mind, which is certainly a possibility; I refuse to plan more than one chapter a head, though in reality it is typically closer to one page ahead. [EDIT: I did change my mind] But I digress; all you really need to know is that the dialogue will improve in future chapters.

Regardless, I hope that you will find this piece enjoyable, and I would greatly appreciate whatever feedback you have to offer. Please be as harsh as you wish, be it for some obscure comma misuse, incorrect assumptions about magic, a plot discontinuity, or whatever you would like to see changed. No doubt that as soon as I read your comment, my OCD powers will activate until I have fixed it, so chapters may evolve over time, though they ought not to change completely.

In fact, the primary reason that I am publishing this here at all is because I need an unbiased audience who will not glorify a disgusting piece of writing merely because I was the person who wrote it. It truly grows to be irritating over time, but there is no place better to have all your faults pointed out than the internet, so here I am. I look forward to reading what you have to say.

Thanks go to eclipse of Serenes Forest and Basikilos for pointing out the ineffectiveness of the introduction, among other things.


	2. The Other Side

Chapter 2

The Other Side

Lasentis was walking through the Streets of Drasor to sell the light runes that she had created over the past week. She appeared to be roughly seventeen years old, though she was in fact just over one thousand six hundred, fully explained by the white, feathery wings that extended through her mage robes. She had light purple hair that fell straight to her shoulders and blue-grey eyes that were often glazed over, lost in thought. She might have been pretty if it were not for the perpetual frown that marred her face.

She had been walking for some time, but just as she was about to reach her destination, a voice called out to her, the honeyed words drawing her closer to that place that she so despised. This time she knew what made that voice and where it led, and it gave her the strength to resist its malicious lies, though it was no easy task.

But she was a divine dragon, in name if not no longer in truth, and thus the exception to the rule. All around her, the far more common red dragons–all in human form, thankfully–left their houses or turned about in their paths to head for the temple, staggering along at the will of that voice. Lasentis looked around as she fought it in hopes of finding another divine dragon, or even an earth dragon to stop them, but there were none to be found. Not that she was surprised, of course. Even if those races were not so rare, she knew that fate had a cruel sense of humor when it came to her, and she grudgingly complied to its demands.

She ran ahead of the other manaketes, quickly spreading out her wings to lift herself off the trembling earth. As much as she hated the temple, she would not allow the humans to cause any more harm, no matter what land they hailed from.

The throbbing in her skull grew stronger as she approached the grand spires that marked the shrine's entrance, but she held firm. No others had arrived yet, but they were not far behind her. She wasted no time, pulling out one of the light runes that she had meant to sell before this incident and placed it on the floor behind her as she spoke the incantation to activate it.

The main entryway was sealed, but the secondary entrance would far more difficult to block, for it was not designed for those in manakete form. The moment that Lasentis entered the main hall, she looked up through the enormous opening in the ceiling designed for transformed dragons to pass through. Much to her relief, it was empty.

Lasentis exhaled, stopping in a moment of reminiscence of the last time she passed through that way, letting the grief and longing wash over her. How she wished she had not come here again, or ever at all.

She looked down from the gaping hole above to stare at the third of the five gates before her. Perhaps that was the one the oracle had passed through over a year ago. Now that she thought about it, Lasentis was sure that the voice that she heard in her head now was the same one that she had heard whispering lies before, so it probably was.

How could the same human open a Gate twice? Did they have any idea what misery they were causing? More likely they just didn't care, but either way, Lasentis loathed them all. She started pulling out her Flux tome just to cast a spell through the Gate on whoever opened it, but stopped after withdrawing the book, knowing that to do so would be the height of folly. Her teacher had from the beginning told her to never tamper with elder magic, and even if she was wielding a tome of purest Lightning, the Gate itself was controlled with powerful elder magic that had been long lost to the ages. She would probably destroy all of Drasor if she did anything to it.

A triumphant bellow resounded from above, jolting Lasentis from her morbid ruminations. She berated herself for her self-absorption, brandishing her Flux again, though she knew she could do little good with it. Still, there was no time to get out a better one, so she would have to try.

"Turn back," she shouted. "You'll find nothing good here. Now, or I'll turn you back myself!"

The crimson beast above roared again as he prepared to dive for the Gate. Lasentis flew upwards to meet him as she began her incantations and a black globule of darkness formed before her foe, but the dragon easily rolled to the side, avoiding it completely. She cursed and began chanting again. That spell found its mark, but as she expected, it did little but annoy the maddened creature who released a spurt of flame in response. Lasentis jerked aside as quickly as she could, but she could not avoid the inferno completely. She bit her lip to avoid crying out from her seared right arm, and though the pain was excruciating, she knew that her teacher could heal it easily. If she could return to him without dying, of course.

By then, the dragon was seconds away from the Gate, though Lasentis continued her incantations through her pain. She knew it was futile, but could not help striking out in anger when the manakete she had tried to protect passed through the Gate unhindered. She unleashed her pent up flux spell on the walls of the temple, which would probably cause some minor damage to the architecture, but she simply could not bring herself to care.

She switched her Flux for a more powerful Elfire tome, should any more arrive. Once upon a time she could have forced dozens of red dragons into submission, but now even one was beyond her, and she needed every advantage she could get. She wished that she had brought a wind tome, but those were extremely rare because of how deadly they were. And while she was listing things she wished she brought, a heal staff would have been nice. But dreaming about what she should have done was useless, even if it was a habit of hers. She turned her head upwards to search for more dragons, but none were in sight.

Moments later, however, Lasentis felt the burning pressure in her skull fade away. She could feel the energy of the Gate wavering, and readied herself for whatever might come. If there were humans powerful enough to open the Gate, they could easily overpower the dragons if they could pass through themselves. Lasentis doubted that even the Eight Demons could have opened it, and history had shown what they were capable of.

But no human was passing through the Gate. It began rumbling again, now even more forceful than before, and a crimson tail emerged from the orange vortex, eventually followed by a torso and finally the head of the fire dragon that had passed through the gate minutes before. It was an agonizingly slow process, as though some force was desperately trying to hold onto him.

The energy of the Gate as the dragon returned was overwhelming, and Lasentis began muttering incantations to stave off the force as best she could. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her light rune sputter out of existence as the energy of the Gate consumed it. The manaketes behind drew back from the sheer power overcoming them, but a flash of movement suggested that one instead rose to meet the threat. Lasentis's concentration faltered as she turned to look, and was relieved to see that it was Morcere, a divine dragon and her teacher in the magical arts. He was not much to look at with his disheveled brown hair and unkept robes, but those heavy, dull clothes that he wore were in fact the robes of an archsage, and his glinting brown eyes and confident, lopsided smile said that he knew just what kind of power that title entailed. He brushed aside the power of the Gate with a sweep of a hand and contained it until it naturally dissipated.

"Well, Lasentis," he said with a grin, "you'll be proud to hear that your skill in making light runes is better than your combat ability. I couldn't even make it budge, and the only reason it failed at all was because the Gate's magic specifically targeted it. Yes, my old teacher would have been really stupid to allow barriers in front of a gate, wouldn't he?"

Then he noticed his apprentice's mournful expression. "Look now," he said, "it's not your fault, this time or the last. What more could you have done?"

"A lot," muttered Lasentis, "if I still had my dragonstone."

"Come now, you did enough already. If you hadn't shown up, then all these people would have gone through as well," he said, gesturing at the crowd in the entry hall that had finally began to disperse, "and who knows if they would have all returned like this one did.

"You did well today, now let me fix your arm before I help Vur over here," gesturing at the fire dragon that had collapsed on the floor before the gate. "Quickly now."

Lasentis obeyed her teacher's wishes, holding up her injured arm as Morcere took out a mend staff and healed her. She then turned to leave that terrible place without a second thought.

–––Author's Notes–––

Let me begin here by saying that the story of Blazing Sword, while certainly entertaining, was clearly designed as an afterthought when compared to the gameplay. I will not rant on the issue here, but I believe that that is the reason why dragons [yes, those great scaly creatures with giant abominable wings] are not flying units; to do so would give bows an unfair advantage in the game. I believe that to have been the proper decision for them, but my story has no gameplay, so I hereby declare that dragons are flying units, and thus weak to wind magic. This, when combined with the fact that this chapter takes place in the dragon dimension [or whatever you wish to call it; there is no official name to the best of my knowledge] where everybody is a dragon, explains why Lasentis states that wind magic is particularly powerful.

This chapter has been updated to include a visual description of Morcere and Lasentis. Thanks to Gunlord500 for pointing out that I forgot to do so in my initial draft.

And on a thoroughly unrelated note, I always insist that all names of my own invention have some meaning behind them. So long as I am putting far too much effort into making them so, I may as well share the etymology with you, though I may choose to do so some time after the character is first introduced if I think it will involve a spoiler. Note that names derived from other languages are not literal translations; that would be unfair to those who understand the meaning.

Lasentis is "the missing stone" from Latin _lapidem_, meaning "stone", and _absentis_, meaning "missing".

Drasor is from Latin _draco_ meaning "dragon" and _sors_, which has many translations, but the two relevant ones are "fate" and "capital". Thus there are the dual meanings of "dragon capital" and "fate of the dragons".

Vur comes from Dutch _vuur_, meaning "fire".

Morcere's name will not be explained at this time in order to prevent spoilers. It comes from Latin as well [yes, I do rather like Latin], but uses particular word forms that are so terribly common that you probably will be unable to deduce the root words regardless of how well you know the language.


	3. Newcomer

Chapter 3

Newcomer

The fires of the Gate were overwhelming, its vast power surrounding Ephidel and threatening to suffocate him. His exposed hands screamed in agony from the searing heat, and it took all his willpower to draw his hood close to protect his head. Yet even the enchantments of his robe began to fail him, and its golden trim slowly singed black. Tendrils of energy forced their way in through his hood and sleeves, and there was no escape from the torment. Ephidel was spent, and no amount of hatred could fuel his resistance any longer.

But then it stopped.

He was spat out onto the cobbled ground behind the dragon that his master had called not minutes ago, which fortunately seemed even more exhausted than Ephidel, utterly motionless beyond the enormous bellows of its lungs. Ephidel did not respond in kind, instead acting with all possible haste. He reached into his tattered cloak for an elixir, and though he found the blue skin quickly enough, he was disgusted to see that it had ruptured in passage through the Gate. He raised it to his mouth regardless and licked the last remaining drops of the potent panacea off the satchel, and while so little could hardly return the morph to perfect health, his condition improved. Now he was minutes from death, rather than seconds, and that was long enough to convince someone to heal him.

He took a moment to observe his surroundings now as he lay on the hard floor. The unconscious dragon before him obscured most of his view, but he caught a glimpse of a purple haired manakete just beyond the hulking red beast. Whoever she was, she clearly had not noticed Ephidel, and based on the bitterness of her expression, the morph decided to keep it that way.

But then another figure came out from a long hallway, a man who appeared to be roughly forty, though the wings protruding from his back suggested that four thousand might be closer. More important than his age, however, was the angle that he was approaching from. Ephidel forced a pleading expression for the brief moment when their eyes met, but the manakete walked past him without a word. The dying morph was unconcerned, for his future benefactor's expression was not the stony gaze made for leaving another to die, nor was it the mask of regret when one wished to help but could not. He would return.

Ephidel patiently laid on the ground, conserving what energy he could even as it seeped out of his body. He could hear the older manakete speaking words of comfort to the girl–just like a human would, the filthy lizard–then sent her away. Using a mend staff, he tended the more grievous wounds of the comatose dragon before the gate as she left, but the moment she was out of sight, he approached Ephidel.

"What are you?" he asked with a mixture of curiosity and condemnation. "You do not feel like a human or a dragon."

"No," croaked Ephidel. "Help."

Then he let himself fall asleep, confident that he would awaken fully restored within hours.

– – –

He was not disappointed. Ephidel found himself lying on a mattress, and because he felt reasonably healthy, immediately took a survey of his surroundings. The wooden room was rather small and fairly bare. Beyond the bed he laid upon there was only a desk, a chair, an empty bookshelf, and a an unlit candle. It was still more than Nergal had supplied him. Bright light shone through the one window, suggesting that it was early afternoon. He could see nothing but trees and empty fields outside, so he turned his attention back onto himself.

His aching and burning body was completely healed as though he had never passed through the Gate at all. He could feel the tattered remains of his cloak clinging to him, which was heartening–even in its ruined state, it would still be extraordinarily effective at repelling magic. What was not so heartening was that he could not feel his knife and tomes pressing against his chest. He thought back, recalling that he had felt their slight weight when he exited the Gate, meaning that the manakete who healed him must have taken them.

Now that he thought about him, how could he have healed him at all? Dragons were always capable of learning magic, of course, that much the histories had made clear, but why would they want to? They already had such power at their command, so magic was redundant. Perhaps something had changed over the past millennium, but that was not even a single generation for dragons, so it was unlikely. He would need to discover more of this; his master would be most interested.

Ephidel stopped in disgusted surprise. "I have no master," he muttered to himself.

That was a mistake. His heart violently palpitated as his blood boiled through his veins. His stomach churned, causing bile to rise up to his throat. Convulsions racked his protesting body. It was only a moment, but it left the morph gasping and drenched in his own sweat. Even in another universe, his master would not let him free.

"What's going on in here?" barked a voice that could only belong to the manakete who had assisted him earlier. Ephidel was surprised to see that he had entered the room without his knowledge, though it probably had less to do with his stealth and more with Ephidel's debilitating fit.

"I am afflicted with a magical malady," explained Ephidel, which was not altogether untrue, "but I have recovered for now. Thank you for saving me." Hopefully these dragons worked similarly to humans. His experience with Ninian and Nils suggested that it was so, but they were only two and both of a different race from this one, so that meant very little. A single look at his expression was enough to tell Ephidel his answer.

"I'll ask you the same question that I asked you at the Gate now," he said flatly, completely ignoring the morph's thanks. "What are you?"

Ephidel was not immediately sure how to reply. Dragons had an uncanny ability to differentiate species, or at least between humans and any race of dragon that would be otherwise indistinguishable. It seemed unlikely that the manakete would know of morphs, but then again, he appeared to be a competent magic user, so it was difficult to be sure. But the morph was sure that he could not get caught lying just yet, so rather than fabricating some ornate response, he decided to do something quite alien to him.

"I am a morph," he said, "a being created by magic to serve."

"Oh?" said the manakete, seemingly intrigued. But Ephidel could see that there was still some sense of caution–and perhaps something else as well–behind it. "And who do you serve?"

Ephidel paused. "Not so very long ago," he said, "I served a human named Nergal." He braced himself for the potentially oncoming attack, but as he had expected, it did not occur. How foolish of his master to allow such petty wordplay to escape his enchantments.

Of course insulting his master, even if only in thought, was enough to trigger the spasm again.

Fortunately the manakete seemed to understand. "So that means nobody right now, doesn't it? Yes, I know how you morphs work, probably more than you do if this Nergal is even halfway intelligent. You couldn't say, do, or think a bad thought of him even if you wanted to, and right now, it looks like you do. Now isn't that strange?"

So he was learned in the elder magic of morph making. It seemed that it was indeed wise for Ephidel to reveal his true nature. "What do you know?"

"I can't free you, if that's what you want. You'll need this Nergal dead for that, otherwise you'll still be magically connected to him. How much elder magic do you know?"

"I am no shaman."

"Hmph. Then you'll have to take my word for it. Now you were carrying some interesting tomes on your way here, I saw. What do you do?"

"I am a sage."

"I could tell that from your tomes, now couldn't I," said the manakete with a smirk. "I didn't ask what you are, I asked what you do."

The smirk spoke volumes to the morph. Clearly he was speaking to a worthy opponent, one who knew far more than he would admit. It seemed that the manakete was not looking for the information contained in Ephidel's response, but rather information about the morph himself because that was in fact the only information that he did not already have. Best to answer truthfully then. "I gathered quintessence. If you know of morphs, then I have no doubt that you know what that means."

"I do indeed," grinned the manakete. "You killed humans for a living."

There was a long pause where the two just stared at each other, but Ephidel already knew that he had won the battle. He always did.

"My name is Morcere," said the manakete. "What is your name?"

"Ephidel."

"Very well then Ephidel. What do you plan to do next?"

That gave the morph pause. It had been nearly three hundred years and the question of what he wanted to do had never occurred to him. Always he had been driven by Nergal's commands, but the old tasks were impossible and no new ones were forthcoming. He found himself left with nothing to say but the age-old human expression that he so detested. "I don't know."

Morcere gave him a perplexed expression. "You are the strangest morph I have ever met," he said, "and once upon a time–a time that I can still remember–they were not so very rare." He paused again, clearly in deep in thought.

"Have you recovered fully?" he asked suddenly.

"I have."

"Good. Come with me."

Ephidel complied, following Morcere about the compact house, winding about until reaching a vast library of books. Very few of them looked familiar, but the morph could tell that they were all books of magic. Morcere picked out one with a dull red cover from a shelf full of strange anima tomes and handed it to Ephidel.

"Take this," he said. "You told me you were a sage; I want to see how you can handle yourself."

"You intend to fight me?"

Morcere laughed at that. "I don't care where you're from, who trained you, or how much talent you have, you don't stand a chance against me. I doubt that even old Athos of the Eight Demons could now. No, I'll see how you compare to my apprentice. Wait here while I find her. But don't touch anything; that would make me most generally irritated. And I'll know."

The manakete turned to leave, and Ephidel knew better than to disobey his wishes at this point. The very room was charged with magical power, despite the tomes being dormant, and the morph very much wanted to learn what secrets they held. But more importantly, he realized that he wanted to out of his own free will, not from some command of his master. That very act of rebellion was far more significant that any magical knowledge he would gain from it, and he would pursue his newfound goal with dogged intensity that dwarfed what he had done for Nergal. It would be the first of many goals that he set for himself–just because he wanted to.

Now to construct a plan for it. The first step was clearly to maneuver himself into remaining with Morcere for an extended length of time, and that meant performing well in the upcoming sparring match. Perhaps he could convince the manakete into taking a new apprentice; he had already given some signs that he might, so the plan seemed reasonable enough. Ephidel held up the strange tome that Morcere had given him and began to read the twisted runes.

_Coldblaze_ read the cover. Ephidel turned to the first page and was surprised to see how extraordinarily complex the spell was. It took a moment to decipher the strange words–often ones that he had never seen in a tome of magic before–but the morph had no trouble extracting meaning from it. The grimoire clearly summoned flames just as a familiar fire tome would, but instead of forcing it into the form of an explosive orb, it left the shape undefined. Far more interesting, however, was that it drained excess magical power from the caster and the heat of the fire itself, drawing the energy back into the grimoire.

Ephidel was impressed. The spell would take extraordinary skill to perform because the caster had to concentrate on the form he wished the fire to take, but would also be completely harmless because all the destructive energy was drawn back into the book. Best of all, this meant that the tome would never break. It was the perfect weapon for practice–assuming, of course, that one did not want one's sparring partner to die, which seemed to be the case here.

He muttered the incantation to get a feel for the spell and a dull red orb of light floated above his outstretched right hand. He felt no heat, as expected, and even direct contact with the flame caused no more than a mildly uncomfortable tingle. As he waited for Morcere to return, he manipulated the flame into the most complex shapes and patterns he could think of; a group of minute blazing soldiers fought each other in remarkable detail over his fingertips when the manakete finally did come back.

"So you can use it," he said. "Good. Now come, my apprentice is waiting outside."

Quickly extinguishing the spell, Ephidel followed Morcere to their destination, but even as they walked, Ephidel continued his manipulations. He was resolved to remain here and learn the secrets of magic that these dragons kept.

"Where did you find this tome?" he asked, though he already had a firm idea of what the answer was. "I've never seen anything like it on Elibe."

"I didn't find it," said Morcere, oddly serious. "I made it. We dragons have not remained idle for the past thousand years. I presume the humans have not either, and I have no intention of letting them gain any advantage over us, for one day we will clash again, even if it is millennia after I too have perished. It may even be sooner; how else could you have arrived here? But whenever that time comes, I assure you that the humans will not be victorious."

Ephidel did not think it wise to explain lord Nergal's part in this just yet, if ever. Still, he could make himself appear useful to the old dragon. "When did you last hear news of the humans of Elibe?" he asked.

"How long has it been since the Scouring?" replied Morcere, returning to his typical guise of insouciance.

There was no need for Ephidel to say that he had observed the humans for the past several centuries; anything more might reveal his scheme, so the morph simply stopped talking. His timing was rather fortunate, in fact, for the pair finally exited the cramped and twisting halls of the building and stepped outside to a large grassy area that slowly gave way to utter wilderness. Nearby stood the purple haired manakete that Ephidel had also seen by the Gate. She seemed much happier now than when he first saw her–not that that meant much–but that changed the moment that she looked at him.

"Is this what you meant?" she spat at Morcere. "Is this why you told me not to be alarmed by this visitor? This _human._"

"Calm down, Lasentis," said her master. "Does he feel like a human to you?"

"I don't care what he feels like, he stinks like a human and I know that that's what you were hiding from me when you came back from the Gate. How am I supposed to calm down?"

Ephidel could not help but be amused at the irony of her distress; she hated humans, but was acting every bit as stupid and unreasonable as they did. Still, he could not afford for their meeting to be too hostile. "Please don't be so angry," he said. "I'm not a human, though I've lived with them for most of my life. That hasn't stopped me from loathing them any less."

He would have stopped there, but it seemed to have no effect on the girl. Very well then, if he could not assuage her wrath, he could at least use it against her. "But I still see that same loathing in your eyes at me. We came here for a duel as it is, so you may as well use this opportunity."

Lasentis gnashed her teeth together as she brandished her own Coldblaze tome. Fortunately she did not have anything more powerful at hand, for she probably would have tried to kill Ephidel if she did. She unleashed a raging jet of flame at her foe, but the sage easily dispersed it with a flick of his wrist, and even though she had only unleashed a single blow, he already began to analyze her fighting style.

The girl was certainly powerful, but lacked technique. The morph had expected that to an extent–why else would he have goaded her?–but it was more severe than he had expected. It must have already been a natural weakness of hers, and if there was anything that Ephidel was good at, it was exploiting such weaknesses.

The fire dissipated and a wholly untouched Ephidel gave a mocking grin to his attacker. As the manakete unleashed another torrent of flame, the morph stepped to his left to avoid it. Lasentis would not allow him to escape so easily, however, and twisted the flame to follow him, though she began to sweat at the effort. As he pushed the spell away, Ephidel realized that she must have begun her training relatively recently, at least more recently than he had.

Lasentis continued to fire volley upon volley of blasts at the morph, who expertly avoided them all. Once the manakete managed to launch three simultaneous attacks as he was off balance from dodging the previous attack, but he still had enough time to pull his cloak around himself. Though the magical cloth was still riddled with holes, the fire could not pierce it, and Ephidel escaped the inferno, yet again, completely unharmed.

Then his foe's strikes began to weaken as Lasentis was drained of magical power. Her once brilliant conflagrations trickled down to mere spurts of flame as she exhausted herself, though it was clear that her wrath had never burned stronger. Even Ephidel could not understand how anyone could become so easily enraged, but that only aided his plan. After his foe let out one final futile flame, Ephidel flourished his own tome and began to mutter the incantations, smiling to himself as the runes vanished as he uttered them only to reappear moments later.

Mustering all of his power, the morph unleashed his first and last devastating assault. A blazing inferno sparked into existence before his outstretched hand, the roaring blaze splitting into five separate jets of flame as it approached his exhausted foe. One stream came from the front, two more from her sides, one from behind, and the last from directly above. Even if she were in perfect condition, she could not have avoided all of the shots from slamming into her, but as it was, she could not dodge even one. She was invisible behind the conflagration for a moment–more than a moment, in fact, for Ephidel swirled the flames about her just to prolong the stinging sensation and prove how powerless she was–but then the morph ended his spell and she again became visible again.

Ephidel's golden eyes glinted as saw her broken expression. She was no match for him and they both knew it. Moving on to more important matters, he turned towards Morcere. "Do you find that satisfactory?" he asked, sure to keep the exhaustion from his voice. Even if he hadn't been dodging about, the one spell that he did cast was costly to him.

The manakete gave him a long, hard look before speaking. "You have a strange style," he said slowly, "though I can't call it ineffective."

"I've had a chance to learn many over the centuries, and that was the one I though best for this battle."

"Hmph. Well don't use it on Lasentis again. She's vulnerable to those sorts of things, and her spellcasting isn't the only thing it affects." Then his tone shifted from serious to sarcastic. "Now I'll have to talk to her again and try to make her feel better. I'll put in a good word for you, but she probably won't stop trying to kill you for a while."

"I apologize," said Ephidel, though he really did not care. "I'll be sure to remember what you said. But why do you make it sound as though I'll see her often?"

"Because," said Morcere with a smile. "You're staying here to train with me. Where else would a spellcaster of your caliber go? I think you'll find that most other dragons don't like morphs very much, and even if they didn't, they couldn't teach you anything. I suppose you could try to fit into the human colony if you wanted; at least you'll find other spellcasters there." He said it as though it was the most ridiculous thing in the world, and if those humans were anything like the ones on Elibe, he was probably correct.

"Thank you," said the morph, layering his voice with that thing humans called sincerity, "I would be happy to become your apprentice."

–––Author's Notes–––

In this piece, as you may have deduced, I have assumed that manaketes are capable of using magic. This is based on the fact that Gotoh the White Sage managed to do so, and while he was from a different continent, I believe that I can safely say that the same applies to those of Elibe. Note that I have never had the opportunity to play the games where Gotoh makes an appearance, so if I am missing some detail or another that renders my entire story meaningless, I would like to know, if only for knowledge's sake.

Any other advice that you have to give is also extraordinarily welcome, because there is still something terribly wrong with my work thus far, even if I cannot yet place what it is. Anything at all that you have to say will be listened to with a most appreciative ear.

Here is the first of the many weapons that I have made up myself:

Name: Coldblaze  
Type: Anima  
Rank: B  
Range: 1-2  
Weight: 8  
Might: –  
Hit: 75  
Critical: 0  
Uses: –  
Weapon Experience: 10  
Effects: Always does zero damage. Infinite uses.


	4. History

Chapter 4

History

If it were up to Ephidel, he would have begun his training the moment that he agreed to become Morcere's apprentice. Instead, he had no choice but to occupy himself with his coldblaze tome as his new master tried to reassure Lasentis for an absurdly long time. It was already late to begin with, and by the time the two manaketes had finished speaking, it was time for them to eat. Morcere instantly prepared some unidentifiable meat with a fire spell, and the three ate together. Clearly Lasentis had not yet forgiven him, for her every bite was punctuated with a fiery glare at the morph. After all of this, Morcere retired for the night, Lasentis soon followed, and the morph had little else to do but sleep as well.

He needed none of it. Food was unnecessary; he had quintessence to fuel him. Sleep was unnecessary; that was for conserving energy, which he had to spare. Reassurance was certainly unnecessary; it was for the weak.

But he had his food and his sleep anyways, which at least saved him some quintessence, but he would have willingly traded that small fraction of his power for all that he would have gained from this new magic that Morcere had to offer. Then again, it might have been for the best, for it was unlikely that he could gather quintessence as regularly as he could on Elibe. He resolved to learn more of society and politics in this place, wherever it was; only then would he know for certain.

It was only logical for him to wake early the next day, then. He rose just before dawn in order to ensure that he would not miss a moment of time that could be spent learning this or other information, but to his mild disappointment, Morcere was not yet awake.

Even more disappointing, he found Lasentis in the kitchen area practicing her spellweaving. Still wielding her Coldblaze tome, she made a series of glowing orbs gracefully float about overhead, all the more brilliant because she somehow managed to shift them from one color to another. She still wore a slight frown, but her eyes were gently shut and she appeared to be at peace. Ephidel had to admit that she was much more skillful at her magic when she was calm.

Then he scuffed his shoe on the ground as he walked–intentionally, of course–resulting in a slight scraping noise. Lasentis's eyes jerked open and immediately went flat when she saw her unwelcome observer, the kaleidoscopic swirls of lights above sputtering back to the dull red that they usually were before winking out of existence entirely. "What are you doing here?" she growled.

"I'm sorry," lied Ephidel. "I didn't mean to disturb you. I'll be quiet if you want to continue practicing; your fires are really quite nice."

Lasentis only offered a derisive bark in return. "You want me to concentrate with a human in the room?"

"I told you," protested Ephidel, "I'm a morph, not a human."

"All the more reason to hate you then."

Well that was a surprise. "What's wrong with morphs?"

"I'll tell you what's wrong with morphs," came a voice from the hallway behind Ephidel. He did not need to turn to see that it was Morcere.

"I'm not surprised you don't know," he said as he began preparing breakfast. "Very few humans and even less of their records survived the Scouring, and that's where all this trouble began. The humans started the war, of course; I don't think that even they could've twisted that, that and the fact that it quickly turned against them.

"Still, the war showed no sign of ending quickly, because even though we would win eventually, they severely outnumbered us, and that would take time to fix. We were not dissuaded from our path, however, for some of our own had already died in battle, and life is precious to we who live so long–and the lesser dragons were never well versed in self-restraint. The friends and family of the fallen, and their own friends and family, refused to back out of the war, despite the protests of the divine dragons and King Naga.

"But he did not come to be king for being foolish, and he designed a plan to circumvent this. Naga knew that he could not stop the war, but he could at least minimize the consequences of it, so he agreed to help under the condition that any humans who surrendered would be spared and then cared for by the divine dragons. Many were unhappy to accept that condition, but the prospect of the most powerful of our race joining the war effort was alluring enough for them to overlook it.

"Our king moved swiftly, and along with the strongest of the divine dragons, he headed directly for the human capital. He hoped to defeat their leaders, and with that, force all of humanity to surrender in one decisive blow so that they would all be allowed to live. That was far easier said than done, however, for their capital was defended by what was said to have been the largest army since the beginning of time.

"It took a full day without rest for the battle to reach its final moments, at which time only Naga, two other divine dragons, and one human spellcaster still stood. The human was strong, well learned in elder magic, but surely no match for three divine dragons.

"What they had failed to account for, however, was how much quintessence the battle had created. The druid had at his disposal not only the power of a million men, but also nearly a dozen divine dragons, and with that he crafted the morphs. They had an uncanny resemblance to those humans who had died in the battle, but their skin pale, hair black, lips red, and eyes gold–a pattern that no divine dragon who lived in that time would ever forget. Not only that, but these morphs were far more powerful than the humans before them, all of their skill and power poured purely into their battling ability.

"They cut down one of dragons before he could react, and the druid then used that quintessence to unleash a single devastating blow on Naga, injuring his wings so that he could not escape. Our king was not so easily defeated, however, and barreled his way on foot through the surrounding morphs to the druid. He crushed him between his jaws even as the morphs hacked him to bits.

"The last dragon, having seen his King seen fall in battle, found himself utterly hopeless against the million morphs below, and fell back to relay the sad news. Most took it as further reason to kill the humans, and the war went on, though without the help of the divine dragons, save for a few fanatics like me. As time passed, it became apparent that the humans were breeding too quickly for us to subdue them, and discussion quickly turned to how we might overcome it.

"Unfortunately, they decided that creating a dark dragon was the only way. It was a twisted bit of magic that turned a divine dragon into an abomination that spawned war dragons, which were weaker than even the red dragons, but that was of no importance when they could swarm over the continent.

"None of the divine dragons could accept that, not even me. We tried to turn them away from that path, just as they tried to turn us toward it, but in the end, we saw that neither side would change their mind. We knew that it would only be a matter of time before they tried to force their decision on us, so we had no choice but to leave Elibe.

"My own teacher in magic then created the Dragon's Gate, leaving behind instructions for its use to only those who he knew would never betray them for the war, and every last divine dragon we could find passed through the it then, taking those humans who had been captured early in the war. Our efforts seemed in vain, though, for not long after, a group of fire and ice dragons followed us, bearing news that the divine dragon Idoun was not only forced to become a dark dragon, but had her soul crushed when she refused to fight.

"You should know the story as well as I do from there, with the Eight Demons, Idoun's defeat, and the Ending Winter, shortly after which most of the other dragons came through the Gate themselves. In the end, though, we lost the war, and that's all that matters."

"I'm sorry for your loss," said Ephidel, "but I must ask. Why did you take me in?"

Morcere set out their breakfast and sat down before giving the morph a knowing smile. "What made you think that a dragon who can cast spells has the same ignorant prejudices as all the others? I learned magic because I knew that it had the potential to be even more deadly than my dragonstone; unlike the rest of my species, I learned from our battles with the humans and was not so prideful as to hide it. I took whatever I could from them so that I could use it against them and kill them all for what they did to us. You have lived among them for centuries and know where they are perpetually weak, and that alone is enough for me to grant you asylum.

"But even that is not all. During my studies of magic, I learned about morphs as well, specifically that they are constructed to fulfill their master's will. If their creator wanted them to be malicious and ruthless warriors that know nothing but war, then they will be so. However, in that unlikely event that they want them to be cold and calculating masterminds who despise humans, then they will be so as well. I think I know which one you are, and I like the answer. You are really not all that different from how I was a few centuries ago, from what I've seen so far."

Ephidel might have laughed at that presumptuous claim, but Morcere was not done speaking.

"Including your manipulations," continued the manakete sharply. "Don't think I haven't noticed them; you may have been the best on Elibe for all I know, but let me tell you, you've met your match here. I know you've noticed some of my manipulations, and I've noticed some of yours, but this is no place for it. You'll save that for elsewhere if you want to train with me. Understood?"

Ephidel felt a foul mixture of fear, surprise, and alarm rise from his stomach, but he did not give into it; he never did. Instead he decided that if the manakete could match his cunning, he was worthy of respect.

He was already aware of when the manakete asked questions that he knew the answer to in advance, and the morph still believed that that was intended to understand character, but now he was unsure what particular trait his opponent was looking for. Certainly not honesty or kindness, but Ephidel did not bother to think further on the incident, for the end result was all that mattered, and there he had succeeded.

Slightly more concerning, however, was what Ephidel had not realized beforehand: in retrospect, it was obvious that Morcere had been manipulating him into becoming his apprentice. Why else would he leave him in a room full of such enticingly powerful tomes or even bothered to test his magical ability at all? Now that he thought of it, the subtle questions that Morcere had asked the previous day were all closely related to how the morph intended to spend his new life here.

But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he did not care. He wanted to learn more magic, and if that just so happened to coincide with Morcere's plans, then so be it. All this rumination took a mere moment for the morph, who continued the conversation without pause.

"Of course," he said, dropping his guise of humble subservience for his usual mocking self. "It will be well worth it to learn from you. Your power rivals Nergal's"–he spat the word out with as much hatred as he could muster–"who is in fact more powerful than Athos."

And at that point he decided to give away all the information he could. He approved of Morcere and generally agreed with him, not to mention that he was brimming with power. If anyone could destroy the humans, it was him.

"You'll be interested to know," he continued, "that both Athos and Bramimond–yes, both of the Eight Demons–are still alive. But the glorious saviors of mankind have grown old and weak after all this time. I would be unsurprised if they could not defeat a single dragon alone."

"It's good to hear how pathetic they have become," smirked Morcere, "though I'm quite interested in Nergal if he's more powerful than them. But you mentioned before that he had you kill humans, so I can't imagine that he would do much to oppose us when we invade. Yes, invade; I'll see to it myself one day."

"It should prove amusing to watch those filthy rodents squeal beneath dragonkind," mocked Ephidel. "But while Nergal would crush humanity–which has tried and failed to do twice now–he would sooner do so to the dragons. The only reason he wants to kill humans is for their quintessence, and if another source of it arrives–a larger source–he will not hesitate. From what I know, I would say that the two of you are roughly equal in power, but for every human you kill, and every dragon that he does, his strength will grow until eventually he can best you."

"And what of the humans as a whole?" asked Morcere. "How have they grown over the last millennium? Or over however long you have been alive for."

"Two hundred seventy-seven years," said Ephidel, "and for all that time, humans have done nothing. I have read of the rapid advancement from the years before the Scouring, and they no longer proceed at such a pace. Humanity has never fully recovered from the war, and I can assure you that there is no Hartmut to oppose you this time. Those who even know of the Divine Weapons at all fear them and have chosen to lock them away. They are all weak."

"Well that's surprising," said Morcere. "We have not fully recovered from the war as well–we breed slowly–but if what you say is true, then we can still easily overcome the humans. Of course, that's all rendered moot because of the oracle."

"Who?" asked Ephidel, though he had a faint suspicion.

"Just over a year ago, the oracle–the keeper of the Gate–disappeared, along with her brother. They were quite strange, mothered by an ice dragon and fathered by a human so that their manakete form lacked wings, but they could still transform. But I suspect that their father was a practitioner of elder magic, for their blood is strong with it, which allows them to open the Gate. It seems stronger with the girl, though, who can even go so far as to see the future at times."

"Would their names," asked Ephidel, "be Ninian and Nils?"

"Then I take it that Nergal has something to do with them?"

"He was the one who called them through the Gate, and he wants to use them to summon even more dragons. He was controlling the girl to open it when I arrived. He will be quite reluctant to return them, though, and will only open the Gate when he's ready to face you all. Is there no other way?"

"Hmm," said Morcere, leaning back in his chair. "I may be able to, but can't say for sure at the moment. My mentor managed to teach a number of dragons with only a basic affinity for elder magic but no training in it to operate the Gate, so it shouldn't require much technical expertise. But I know it works differently on this side–I already spoke to the dragons who opened it later on in the Scouring and tried to make them reopen it here, but it didn't work. Regardless, I should be able to figure it out eventually with some experimentation, but it's a sacred place, so it won't be easy for me get the time to do that.

"Did your master keep any notes?"

"No. Spellcasting dragons were always rare enough that any knowledge could be passed on by word of mouth, but he didn't want this magic to be remembered. He spent the last of his power creating the Gate, then died without speaking another word of it.

"However," he said loudly, "we can figure this out later. That's the last step before invasion, and we ought to concentrate on the first–unifying the dragons on this decision; most do not want war again despite the shame of it all. But that is not a task for you; right now we should concentrate on your training. We will begin as soon as you're ready, but there is something we must do first."

He looked thoughtfully around the room for something that he couldn't seem to find. "Lasentis," he said to his apprentice, who had been glaring at Ephidel the entire time, "go outside and start practicing. Later on today we can practice Fimbulvetr, but start with Coldblaze for now."

The young manakete agreed and left the room, leaving Ephidel alone with Morcere.

"Come," said the manakete.

Ephidel followed him back to his room where he was instructed to lay down on the bed, which he did with some puzzlement.

"I know that I cannot fully trust you," said Morcere sadly. "But I also know that you have enormous magical potential and hatred for the humans, and I cannot let those go to waste. I have thought about how to force you to keep your word, but I know of only one absolute way to control a morph, and I don't know how to explain the potential punishment without making it happen. Try not to think too much on it, but know that I could do it again if I have to. I apologize for any suffering that this causes you now–I've brought you here to make the pain as bearable as possible–but it is necessary. We may begin training as soon as you feel ready.

"Now," he continued in a harsher voice. "How does it feel to know that you have betrayed your master to me?"

Purest agony. It shot up his spine and exploded in his head, the unbearable torture lasting for many minutes as he convulsed.

But Ephidel accepted the pain. Part of him knew that it was necessary; he would do the same under similar circumstances. Another part knew that he deserved it for what he had done to his one and only master.

–––Author's Notes–––

It is mentioned that Ephidel does not need food or sleep. I believe that Athos does not as well, so it is certainly possible, and such necessities do seem like weaknesses that Nergal would attempt to eliminate from his morphs. Ephidel would still need to be capable of doing both in order to complete his disguise as a human, and thus I made it so.

I stole the divine dragon king Naga [alternate translation Narga] from the other Fire Emblem games, for he [or she; the story seems to change with the game] is noticeably absent from Elibean lore. The current description of his exploits, in addition to most of the other information regarding the Scouring, was completely different during the first draft of this, and I give credit to an anonymous reviewer who signed "Naglfar", in addition to Gunlord500 for pointing out how illogical it was. I do hope that this explanation is more reasonable, and based on more recent reviews, it seems that it is so.

I assumed that humanity was far more advanced in regards to technology and magic before the Scouring, where most of it was then lost. I give credit to Gunlord500 [again, and based on his nice reviews thus far, I will likely do so often] for making me realize how unrealistic anything else would be in his interesting piece Wayward Son.

And finally, I write just as I will in every other chapter: please review. I would very much appreciate a nice thorough thrashing of my writing, though I suppose a "good job" would still be a decent consolation prize.


	5. First Lessons

Chapter 5

First Lessons

It took Ephidel an unspeakably long time to recover from his fits. Just as one seemed to end, his mind cleared enough for him to remember his betrayal, and so another began. He had never known pain more severe than this.

Eventually he managed to assert some control over it, and sought to drive it out of his mind. He refused to let this curse consume him, and so when the last attack finally abated, he focused purely on reciting the coldblaze incantations, then the same for every tome he had ever used, so that he might distract himself from more treacherous thoughts. By the time he had finished, he could avoid thinking of Nergal entirely, so he headed outside where he assumed that he could practice his magic with Morcere.

He found the manakete where he expected, teaching his apprentice the intricacies of Fimbulvetr. Lasentis seemed to be learning it well enough, and while it took visible effort on her part, she was able to call upon the powers of wind and ice every time. After having completed one final spell, she produced her coldblaze tome as Morcere took fimbulvetr and walked over to Ephidel.

"Glad to see you recovered," he said airily, "but I won't talk about it too much so you can have a chance to forget about it. Now if you're ready to begin, you can start by telling me which anima tomes are now common on Elibe and which ones you've actually used."

"Fire, thunder, elfire, bolting, fimbulvetr, and excalibur," recited Ephidel, "each one being more complex than the last, in addition to a few unique tomes, such as forblaze. Of those, I have only used the first four."

"That's it?" asked Morcere incredulously. "Only six common tomes? No basic wind magic? No water spells unless you count Fimbulvetr, and earth magic all but vanished? I suppose I can understand the loss of free-form magic, but really, all of that is gone? You're sure that's everything?"

"I am a morph. I do not forget."

"Hmph, true enough. We'll have a lot to cover then. Try starting with this," he said, indicating the Fimbulvetr tome that he still held. "You might not have used it before, but it should be at least slightly more familiar than everything else I have to offer. I don't know whether or not you can actually use it–it's slightly more complex than Coldblaze–but there's only one way to find out."

Ephidel took the tome and began skimming its contents. Apparently it worked by extracting water from summoned winds, freezing it as it shot the liquid upwards, then crushing the resulting ice and whatever happened to be encased within. It seemed simple enough, if somewhat extravagant for his tastes, but he had seen Limstella use it before, and it was certainly not lacking in power.

"Here, aim for this," said Morcere, lifting up one hand to create a ball of green light. It hovered about twenty feet forward and stopped, floating roughly five feet above the ground.

Ephidel began murmuring the unfamiliar incantation, and though he stumbled once at a particularly strange cluster of words, he still managed to complete the spell. Icy winds roared inwards on his target, and small flakes of snow began to fall from the sunlit sky. Frost coalesced beneath the green light before him and exploded fifteen feet up into the air with such force that the ice immediately shattered into a thousand pieces.

"Good," said Morcere with a glint in his eyes. "Now try again."

Before Ephidel could even speak a word, the green ball of light began to dart about with all the speed of a swordmaster. The morph did not resume his magic immediately, instead waiting just a moment so that he could track the light's movement. Only then did he begin his incantations. He traced the subtle pattern of the orb as it weaved back and forth, and when he unleashed the full fury of Fimbulvetr again, it struck its mark perfectly and the light winked out of existence.

"Good," said Morcere again, "You seem to have this one down fine. Lets try something harder now. Wait here." He headed into the house, then came back a moment later with a veritable mountain of books floating behind him.

"Try this, since you mentioned it," said Morcere, handing him an Excalibur. "From what you said, it's probably the most powerful anima tome actually used in Elibe, but really, that doesn't mean anything to me. Go ahead."

Ephidel took the grimoire and began to read the twisted runes. It was clearly high-level wind magic, as anyone who had heard of the tome before would know, but beyond that he could extract no definite meaning. He could read the words aloud to himself, but he might have been speaking gibberish for all it would do.

"I can't use it," he conceded.

"Magic's funny like that, isn't it?" smirked Morcere. "There's nothing both more difficult than Fimbulvetr and less than Excalibur, but you can't just jump from that to this no matter how hard you try. You just have to keep practicing what you do know until suddenly you look back at this book and wonder why it all makes sense. Even I can't pretend to understand why it works like that, but it does, so don't question it. But enough of that. I have more tomes, and I'm confident you can use them, even if you've never even heard of them before. Here, try Arcthunder."

Ephidel did, and moments later the ground was scorched by lightning more powerful than even bolting. Morcere took it back before handing him another, this one titled Bolganone. He went through tome after tome to just to get a feel for them all, and noticed that while many seemed similar in style to the tomes that he had used before, there were also a number that were totally alien, clearly developed by Morcere or his master and available nowhere else. Of those, there were a few that the morph could not use at all, much to Morcere's disappointment. They were clearly simple enough to understand, but even though he could, the spell simply refused to work. It seemed that many of the tomes that Morcere created were completely unusable to anybody but him, regardless of skill level.

"Enough," said the old manakete after nearly an hour of work–and at least twenty tomes of every bit of anima magic one could imagine. "You seem to understand all of the elements well enough, so your next step is to practice with Coldblaze until you can use Excalibur. But you can do that on your own, so let's move on for now. How do you fare without your tomes? Make me a fire."

He snatched the most recent grimoire–one that summoned earthquakes–out from Ephidel's hands, leaving him unarmed. Still, magic was quite possible even without tomes, even if it was less effective, but it was not something the morph was accustomed to. Nergal's policy had always been that if you were weak enough to be caught without a tome, then you would be better of dead, at least as much as a morph can die.

Of course it was not impossible for the talented morph even without prior experience. He began to speak the incantations of a simple fire tome, and the resulting orb of flame burned brightly enough even it would be no more useful than a torch in battle. He held the fire for a moment before letting it wink out of existence.

"Not bad," said Morcere, "but surely you can do better. Any talented mage should be able to control the elements without a tome, but here I was expecting something more interesting. Maybe like this?"

And with a flourish of his hands, a massive explosion fired off before him, aimed directly at Ephidel. He was fairly resistant to magic as it was, particularly when augmented by his enchanted cloak, but he still could not help but be blown back by the sheer force of the attack. He was still on his feet, but only barely.

"Now that wasn't my best," said Morcere as though nothing had happened, "but I still can't say that I expect you to do quite that well. It does give you a good idea of what you're capable of, though. Sure you passed through mostly unscathed, but I think you know how those endowed with a bit less magical resistance than you would react.

"So again, you need to practice, both with this and with conventional tomes. On your own for now while I finish Lasentis's lessons, but then you can practice with her. You both need it."

Ephidel grimaced at that. He had not the slightest sense of camaraderie for the girl and severely doubted that any amount of time with her would change that. He also had the slightest suspicion that the feeling was mutual.

"Can I ask you why she is always so miserable?" said Ephidel; quiet so that he would not be overheard.

"Of course!" came Morcere's blaring reply, "but I don't feel like answering that right now. Chances are, I never will, so why don't you go and ask yourself? That should be fun to watch."

Ephidel sighed to himself, genuinely irritated by how blunt his mentor's manipulations were. Not that he could do anything about it, of course, so he simply took out the Coldblaze tome that he now carried with him at all times and began to practice. Twenty minutes later, Morcere returned inside leaving the morph and manakete girl alone.

Lasentis's expression, surprisingly enough, was not the one of undisguised loathing that Ephidel had so often received before then. Instead, it was dull and empty, the face of one who hated what they had to do but had no other options available to them.

"Morcere told me to stop being so rude to you," she said, "so I will do my duty."

"Duty?" asked the morph, intrigued. That was a potential weakness.

"Yes, duty," she said, her expression unchanged, though hatred had begun creeping into her voice. "It might be a foreign concept to you, morph, but I owe Morcere a lot for his help. He took me in at my worst, and before that saved my life. No matter how many centuries pass, I'll never forget that, and neither should you, because in case you haven't noticed, he did the same for you."

A lesser being might have mistaken what she really meant by all that, but Ephidel was not so foolish as to believe that she hated him simply because Morcere helped him or because he failed to show proper thanks. His first encounter with the young manakete easily proved that she hated him long before knowing anything about him, therefore it must have been something about the one thing that she could determine that quickly: his appearance. He did not believe for a moment that it was purely because he was a morph–she was far too vehement about it–but he still could not deduce what else it could be. There was nothing to do but delve deeper, though he would have to be careful in case Morcere was eavesdropping; he was unsure what level of manipulation would be considered acceptable, and asking was certainly not an option.

"I know he saved me," snapped Ephidel, "and look what I'm doing now: I'm helping him accomplish the one thing he truly wants in life–killing the humans. What are you doing?"

Lasentis looked like she was going to yell, but she caught herself; no doubt the work of that duty she had mentioned before. It extinguished her fire, but replaced it with ice.

"Morcere wants to make sure that you learn well and told me to help you however I can. I'll do it because I have to, but that's it. I'm done talking to you now; we're starting now."

Ephidel signed outwardly at the girl's strange sense of discipline. Clearly there would be no further progress in the near future and he would simply have to endure her obnoxiousness for the time being. He brandished his Coldblaze tome, but before he could so much as open it, Lasentis attacked.

Ephidel responded easily enough, dodging the spell before retaliating with his own burst of flame, and they exchanged volley after volley for what must have been ten minutes before the morph won. The match was far closer to fair now that his foe was at least relatively calm, but Ephidel still had far more experience with battle and magic as a whole, so the match was again clearly tilted in his favor. Still, he had to admit that Lasentis had some potential as a spellcaster; even now she was better than most of the sages of Elibe.

They stopped to rest and eat after their duel–in total silence, of course–then returned to practice magic without their tomes. Here, at least, Ephidel was at a disadvantage, and both of them knew it. At least his sizeable magical resistance made the potentially harmful magic no more painful than Coldblaze, but he still did not look forward to the prospect of losing to a clearly inferior spellcaster.

The two stood roughly twenty feet away from each other without a tome in sight when they began. Ephidel began to chant the familiar incantations of Elfire, but was cut short when Lasentis shot her own spell at him–a simple Fire. The blazing orb flew overhead towards the morph, but her aim was suspiciously terrible, landing ten feet to his right so that even the resulting explosion missed him entirely.

Somehow she managed to fire another attack, though, this one landing five feet to Ephidel's left, but then he finally managed to respond with his own attack. Flames swept out from beneath his feet before coalescing into twin orbs that spiraled upwards above his head before fusing into a single deadly sphere.

But something was amiss. The fire was strangely erratic, and he could only barely bring himself to control it. He furrowed his brow, renewing his efforts on the incantation, but it seemed to continually slip beyond his reach. He tried for just a moment longer, but the pent up power of the spell was simply too much to contain any longer and he had no choice to release it.

The orb shot forward with all its usual haste, but seemed to quiver and twist in its path before letting loose a particularly pathetic explosion some twenty feet away from its target. The resulting conflagration shot out in every direction at once rather than upwards as it usually did, accompanied by the usual two orbs of flame, and while one headed far off from both combatants, one headed directly for Ephidel.

The morph angrily swatted it aside, but while he was distracted, Lasentis managed to land a direct hit on him with her own fire. It did not hurt, of course, but it was galling nonetheless. He began to chant his counterattack, this time basic Fire for its superior accuracy, but again it took far longer than it should have. Not only that, but it seemed nearly as taxing as casting Elfire, consuming all of his attention so much so that he could not even to take the effort to avoid Lasentis's incoming missiles. Fortunately, she too seemed unable to wholly control the magic, for though she was still better than Ephidel, she still could not manage to hit him more than half the time.

The battle lasted not much longer, in part because the two were still somewhat tired from their last bout, but mostly because the match was so terribly one sided. Lasentis must have attacked twenty, perhaps even thirty times and had landed at least a dozen blows on Ephidel, while the morph had attacked no more than ten times and hit his mark precisely once. He refused to admit defeat by asking for a break, so it was Lasentis who ended the battle after a particularly fierce series of attacks.

"That was pathetic," she said disinterestedly. "You act like you still have the tome with you, but that doesn't work. Think the incantations, it's faster than saying them, and find something to focus on. Don't use complex magic; it's even slower than usual this way. I'm done with you now, so go practice somewhere else."

"Fine," replied Ephidel with a bit of not entirely artificial irritation. "Where's Morcere?"

"Away," she said, her frown deepening. "He went inside, but he could be in the very heart of Drasor for all I know, but wherever he is, he's too busy for you."

Ephidel accepted the answer for now and headed around the corner of Morcere's house, outside of Lasentis's view. He had much training to do.

–––Author's Notes–––

I do apologize for the [relatively] long length of time between updates; I have been on a trip to a place where free Wi-Fi does not exist. My natural instincts of stinginess have prevented me from paying the ridiculous sum of twenty dollars for internet access, and thus this chapter could not be posted. And on a semi-related note, I have also spent some time revising chapters three and four–you can see specifically what has changed in the Author's Note's section of the respective chapters, or just read it again if you so choose.

All of my new canonical extrapolations during this chapter involve magic, particularly the fact that it can be used without a tome, though I believe that most people already agree with such a deduction in some way, shape, or form. There is no explicit record, to the best of my knowledge, of offensive magic being used without a tome, but the three spellcasters here are certainly above average, thus it seems reasonable that even if it might not be a common practice among other mages, adepts may be capable of it. Furthermore, there are clearly some limitations on this type of casting, so it would not be practical when tomes are otherwise available.

And while I am discussing magic, many of the spells mentioned in this chapter were simply stolen from other Fire Emblem games, but as hinted, I will likely add some of my own somewhere or another.

And, as always, please review. I do very much appreciate it, and I can assure you that what you have to say is always well heeded. I am also [slowly] looking for a good beta, so if you believe that you can help in that respect, I would like to know as well. Thank you for reading.


	6. Drasor

Chapter 6

Drasor

Every day since Ephidel had come, he and the others had followed a strict schedule. The three woke at dawn, ate breakfast, practiced outside under Morcere's instruction for a few hours before sparring, and then practicing on their own. Every day they learned something new from their mentor, some days with staves, others with making tomes and other magical items, but usually it was with offensive anima spells, as it was today.

"Good," said Morcere. "Now tighten the spiral and increase its radius."

Ephidel did as instructed, putting all his concentration into the bolting tome before him. A magnificent arc of electricity descended from above, twisting around itself as it fell. In a mere moment it struck the ground, leaving a scorched ring of earth roughly ten feet in diameter, though his target was completely untouched, located precisely in the center of the circle as it was. Twenty feet away from him, Lasentis produced the same results.

"You see the point of all this, right?" asked Morcere. "Your enemy's first instinct when being attacked is to move, but if they do that here, they're dead. And even if they catch on eventually, you can still surprise them by using the spell normally instead. Useful, isn't it?"

Ephidel's mouth curved slightly upwards at that; it was another one of his mentor's many tests. "That's not its only use though," he said. "Its larger blast radius makes it more useful for sieges or large battles where your targets are so large they can't be missed."

"Of course," said Morcere. "Anything else?"

Ephidel thought about it for a moment, but Lasentis answered almost immediately, cutting him off. "If there's something you're trying to recover–an important object or a somebody whose been captured–who's surrounded by guards, you can clear them all out without harming it." The morph noticed that her frown deepened as she said this, and based on his softened tone, Morcere did as well.

"Yes, Lasentis. Very good."

He paused for a moment, lost in thought. It was late morning now, so like every other day, Morcere was sure to leave his two apprentices to themselves as he practiced magic himself or disappeared entirely for the rest of the day. Ephidel had no idea what he did under the latter circumstances, and while he had the distinct impression that Lasentis did, she refused to tell him–or anything else that Morcere did not directly tell her to.

"Lasentis," said the older manakete suddenly. "It's been two weeks now. You're going to Drasor today."

Lasentis nodded at that, as though her mentor's command was thoroughly expected. What was not as expected was his following remark.

"And Ephidel, you'll accompany her. I've watched the two of you practice before, and every day you learn new techniques from each other and master them that same day. There's not much left for you to do for the rest of today if you're alone. Not only that, but as long as you're living here, I think it's important that you see the city at least once, and you dying inside the Temple hardly counts."

That was concerning. It was impossible for Morcere to honestly believe that he could not improve on his own, but the greater issue was the potential danger of his request. Ephidel had always been an accomplished spellcaster by any means and had grown much stronger over the past two weeks, but he was not foolish enough to believe that that put him on the same plane as a dragon.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "You said before that dragons dislike morphs."

"Untrue," countered Morcere. "I was talking about divine dragons at the time. We are extremely rare, especially in Drasor nowadays, usually living far away from the city like me. The only one I know of who actually lives in Drasor is the Divine Dragon King Naga–not the one of legend; it's just a name passed down to each ruler of our race. And he's really not all that pleasant as it is anyways, so I doubt it would really matter. Not only that, but you'll be happy to know that he never leaves his palace, so it won't be problem at all."

Ephidel severely doubted that. Some, perhaps even all of what Morcere said must be true, but he was withholding some vital fact. He was too hesitant at first, and his response too hasty. A number of possible meanings occurred to the morph, but that was useless if he could not reduce them to a single solution, which was impossible with this little information. Still, Morcere had his best interests at heart–at least as long as their interests were the same–so the morph grudgingly acquiesced, even if did not understand the purpose of this deception.

"Very well. How long do you think it will take?"

"Hmm. Perhaps about dinner time?" he said with a slight grin. An obvious lie.

"That long? What do we need to do there?"

"Sell some magical artifacts that we made and use the money to buy food and other necessities. But most of the time will be spent walking. You were unconscious when you first came here, so you won't recall that it's a two-hour walk to the city. I could warp you there, but I don't want to break all my staves too quickly. Now wait here a moment, I have your bags for you, but let me get them for you."

He left then before anyone could say another word, returning with two enormous rucksacks that looked ready to burst. He handed one to Lasentis, who immediately placed it on her back before turning to leave, and the other to Ephidel, who immediately staggered from the weight before dropping it. Nergal had designed him to be skillful at manipulation and magic alone, and physical strength was not needed for either.

"Careful!" admonished Morcere. "You're going to be selling those, and even though there isn't much competition, people are expecting good products from me."

The morph laboriously wrenched the colossal bag up from the ground and somehow managed to hoist it up onto his shoulders. "If I have to carry this the entire way," he said "we are starting now."

"That's the spirit," said Morcere with a malicious chuckle. "Take care not to exhaust yourself now."

Ephidel pursed his lips and steeled himself for two hours of what would no doubt be an extraordinarily unpleasant journey.

– – –

It had been two and a half hours since they left, and Drasor was still nowhere in sight. It was quite expected when considering Ephidel's sluggardly pace, but that knowledge did nothing to help the situation. The morph had to resort to killing small animals for their quintessence, and while Lasentis seemed not to struggle at physically, there was no mistaking her irritation at her companion.

"Hurry up," she said, the mantra that she had repeated countless times since they began. She had been traveling at a relentless pace the entire time, seemingly untouched by fatigue.

Ephidel's only response was a slight increase in pace, though moments later he slowed back down again. A few more minutes later, he stopped entirely, the sun beating down on him overhead. A drop of sweat trailed down the lock of hair that extended down over his brow, and not for the first time he wished that he was not wearing a long black cloak.

It took Lasentis a moment to realize that he halted, but when she did, she turned around and headed back towards him, now more than irritated.

"I don't really want to do this," she said, "but if you go any slower, you'll make our buyers wait on us, and they don't like doing that."

Then she began muttering an incantation, though she had no tome, and pointed one hand directly at Ephidel. The morph did not respond, in part because he was utterly exhausted, but mostly because in the not altogether unlikely event that the spell she was casting was offensive, it would do very little damage to him even in his current state.

Fortunately, the spell was not offensive at all. Rather than an explosion or gust of wind, Ephidel was confronted with the odd feeling of a weight being lifted from his shoulders. This was, in fact, quite literally what was happening, and the bag that he had been carrying for so long floated up an imperceptible distance off of his back.

"What is this?" he asked, letting his ire show in his voice. It still gave him a certain sense of satisfaction to manifest his emotions. "Is this why you're still not tired?"

"Yes. But it's dark magic, so you can't use it. Now hurry up." She turned back around towards their destination, but Ephidel could have sworn that her face was twisted into a malicious grin, or at least her own strange equivalent of it. But he could not deny that they needed to hurry and proceeded to follow her with all reasonable haste.

To his relief, Drasor came into view not ten minutes later as they passed around a large mountain. The city was much closer than he had expected, and after twenty more minutes, they were walking among the houses dotting its fringes. They were all single story stone buildings, but were quite sparse, as expected for a race where a single generation was at least a millennium. But what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in size; every last one of the mammoth structures were so tall that any manakete, dragon form or otherwise, could fit inside. This seemed fitting, for while most of the manaketes seemed to be walking about just as a human would, there was always it least one flying overhead in their dragon form. There were very few people about, though those who were were almost all fire dragons, with a few ice dragons as well. He saw no divine or earth dragons at all.

As they headed deeper into the city, both the number of manaketes and buildings increased somewhat, though they were still nothing compared to a human city. Still suspicious of Morcere's earlier assurances, Ephidel tried with reasonable success to remain inconspicuous, a great feat considering that he was the only person present without a pair of wings sprouting from his back. He occasionally received some strange looks, but no more than that, and he was content.

The buildings still remained rather far apart from each other, enough so that those in dragon form could walk between them. Many of the newer buildings, however, were so small that only those in human form could hope to enter. Many of them appeared to be shops, and that was where they were headed.

Lasentis lead them to a small but well kept tavern titled _The Butchered Buck_, though Ephidel quickly realized that it was in fact not a tavern at all. There was neither the scent of alcohol nor the sound of drunken idiocy, and some unknown meat–presumably venison–was more common than any drink. Further inspection showed that even those drinks that did exist were in fact only water, which made sense as he considered it–a drunken dragon must be a terrible sight to behold.

Ephidel followed Lasentis to a small table and sat down, and a moment later, a tall orange haired manakete girl followed them. Based on her leathery red wings, she was a fire dragon.

"Hi, Lasentis," she said, "You're so late I thought you weren't coming."

"Don't look at me," came the reply, strangely lacking its usual ice. "It's his fault."

"Oh, how rude of me," she said, turning to Ephidel. "I'm Areth. What's your–" her eyes suddenly widened and she bent over to whisper something to Lasentis. She clearly did not know that as a morph–one specializing in political sabotage no less–Ephidel's senses were far more acute than usual.

"Where are his wings?" asked Areth.

"He doesn't have any," said Lasentis. "He's not from here, but Morcere trusts him and he said that he has to come with me."

"Is he a human? He doesn't feel like one, but he does look like one. It's so strange, though, I don't remember any humans looking so pale or having eyes like that. Wait!" she said, suddenly raising her voice back to normal, though she quickly quieted her voice even more than it was before. "He's a morph isn't he?"

Lasentis gave no response, apparently quite surprised that Areth had figured it out so quickly and confused as to what it meant. Ephidel did not react either, though only because he was confident that she would not harm them; she was too friendly with Lasentis for that.

Areth did not seem to be the most intelligent dragon, but she certainly knew what silence is supposed to mean, and acted accordingly. "I'll help, but you have to leave," she said. "Err, wait a minute, I'll get you some food first."

She hurried off before anyone could argue the point, her obvious distress attracting far more attention than Ephidel did. She returned a moment later with two slabs of seared meat, not even with a plate, handed it to the two of them, and pushed them out the door. It attracted much attention, but fortunately Areth was at such an angle that nobody could see Ephidel's back.

Lasentis, it seemed, did not like the sudden turn of events and was reacting much slower because of it. Ephidel grabbed her by the arm and walked into the nearest alley as quickly as he could without attracting any attention, careful to keep her between himself and anybody walking the streets. She protested at first, but stopped quickly enough.

When they were safely out of sight, Lasentis violently pulled her wrist from his grasp and stepped back. "What are you doing?" she spat.

"Surely you realize," said Ephidel, "that my presence is unwelcome here."

Lasentis bit her lip, clearly concerned. "But Morcere said that it would be fine."

"I know what he said and I know what I saw. I also know that he will lie without remorse."

"How do you know he's a liar?" she asked, angry again. "You seem a lot more like one to me than he does."

Ephidel sighed at that. He still could not understand how somebody over five times his age could be so immature, but that was the way of dragons. "Fine then. What do you propose we do?"

"Morcere always gives me a list of things to do while I'm here. We need to look at that before we decide anything."

Surely such a list could not change the situation, but Ephidel decided to humor her. Lasentis reached into her bag and produced piece of parchment covered from top to bottom with the indecipherable scrawl that was Morcere's handwriting. Ephidel attempted to read it over her shoulder, but the penmanship was so terrible that he had only deciphered the first few lines by the time Lasentis had read the note in entirety and put it away with a confused expression. She reached back into her bag to extract a second piece of parchment, this one sealed with some glue.

"He wants you to read this," she said.

Ephidel took it suspiciously and tore open the seal. The message was short and direct: _Don't you dare disobey me. Destroy this immediately._

Ephidel crumpled the sheet in one hand and set it aflame. There was no mistaking what the note meant, and he did not like it. "We're staying in Drasor," he said, covering the golden glow of his eyes as best he could with his hood. "Let's go to the first stop."

Unfortunately, that seemed to be on the opposite side of the city. They ate as they walked, and at Ephidel's insistence, did their best to navigate in the smaller streets when they could, but those were not always available. Whenever those brief excursions happened, he demanded that Lasentis walk directly behind him to block any prying eyes, and it seemed to work well enough. It also helped that even in the heart of the capital, there were still relatively few people about. Some clearly knew that something about the morph was amiss, but perhaps were not adamant enough to act on it. After twenty minutes of walking, they finally reached their destination. It was a small and utterly unremarkable building, neither in the center of the town nor its fringes.

"I told you it would be fine," said Lasentis firmly. "Morcere wouldn't put me in danger like that. I still can't see how you imagined him doing that."

Ephidel did not bother responding. Either she would learn the truth after their next close encounter with another manakete, or she would continue to delude herself forever. Probably the latter, but he would deal with that obstacle only if it came.

They went inside the shop and were faced almost immediately by a very red woman. Red hair tied back into a ponytail, a red dress over red pants; even the color of her eyes was red. More interesting than that, however, was that like Ephidel, she had no wings, and not only that, she seemed vaguely familiar.

"Do you have your card?" she asked before they could say anything.

Lasentis presented a yellow slip of parchment with an intricate seal drawn on it.

"Great," said the shopkeeper. "Morcere said you two would be dropping by, but I still have to check for these things, don't I? Welcome to the shop. Lasentis and I've done some business in the past, but I haven't met you yet, Ephidel. I'm Anna. You'll need to both buy and sell today, right?"

"I know you," interrupted Ephidel, surprised. "You were that human on Dread Isle who lived behind the Gate's outer entrance. How did you get here?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, "You probably saw one of my sisters; people mix us up a lot. That's fine though, as long as you have business to offer. Anyways, you seem a lot friendlier than Lasentis does, so why don't we get started?"

Ephidel could already tell that she would not stop talking so long as there was business, so he did not respond immediately. He was more interested in the comment of his relative friendliness, and turned to look at Lasentis, who oddly enough, was giving the merchant the very same scowl that she had always reserved for him. He would need to consider that later.

"I'm afraid you'll still need to talk with Lasentis. I am here to carry things and observe."

"Oh, really? That's not what Morcere said, but whatever you want. Let's begin. What do you have to sell?"

Lasentis began to dully list a number of tomes, staves, and enchanted weapons, taking them out of their bags as she said them. They were all items that the two of them had made with Morcere over the past two weeks, and many were exceedingly rare.

"Is that everything?" asked Anna after several minutes. "That's a lot more than usual. Hmm, let's see now. How does 10,000 sound?"

Both of the spellcasters widened their eyes at that, and the two suddenly spoke out at once. "Of course," said Lasentis.

"Terrible," said Ephidel.

"What?" asked the merchant, giving Ephidel a smile that barely concealed her trepidation.

"Terrible," repeated the morph. "Gespenst alone should sell for almost twice that amount, and we have a lot more goods than that. I think 150,000 gold is quite reasonable."

"Sure," said the merchant with a nervous laugh. "15,000 sounds fine."

"15,000 sounds remarkably dissimilar to 150,000," he said with a malicious grin. He was rather enjoying this.

"What? That's totally unreasonable!" she said before dropping down to a whisper that even his acute ears could barely hear. "No way I could sell this for more than 200,000."

"What was that? 200,000 gold is the selling price? Fine then, 100,000 is our final offer, one that any good merchant would accept. Don't try and bargain any more; you'll find your profit very close to zero if you do."

The merchant gritted her teeth together, shooting Ephidel a murderous glare. He did seem to be receiving a lot of those lately. "Fine," she spat. "Now buy something."

Lasentis again began reading things off from her list, and Ephidel paid close attention to prevent further swindling attempts. Many of the requests were extraordinarily strange–they had no need for dried meats, lightweight tents, or vulneraries. It seemed that Morcere did not expect them to return for some time.

The transaction was completed without incident, save for Lasentis glaring at Anna and Anna glaring at Ephidel, but they got what they needed and still had over three-quarters of their funds remaining. As soon as they had finished, the merchant nearly forced them out the door and slammed it behind them.

"Humans," cursed Lasentis with a scowl. "They'd sell their soul if you offered enough money for it. She's been buying things like that for centuries."

Ephidel silently agreed with her, though he doubted that this Anna was entirely human, especially if she was alive for centuries. But it was not worth debating, so they simply proceeded to their next destination.

This one was even further on the fringes of Drasor. Unlike many of the other houses in the area, this building had no windows save for at the very top, and it impossible to see inside. The door was locked, and when they knocked on it, a small slat opened and a pair of stern eyes looked out at them. "What d'you want?" came a slurred voice.

"We have some things from Morcere to offer you," said Lasentis.

The man grunted as he closed the slat and opened the door. He was a large manakete, both in height and width, and his leathery red wings identified him as a fire dragon. The room he stood in was populated with a number of other manaketes similar in appearance, all sitting with a mug of ale in front of them. Ephidel had a slight suspicion that this business was not entirely legal, but at least none of them were sober enough to realize that he was not a manakete.

The man led them over to a table and sat down. "So whatsit you're selling?" he asked.

"This," said Lasentis, producing a vial of some clear liquid. "This is filled with enchanted water that will stop intoxication. Just drink a drop of it after your ale, and nobody will be able to tell the difference. This is about 200 doses, so it'll cost 20,000 gold."

"20,000?" scoffed the man, "That's ridiculous."

"How much would you have to pay if one of these people got caught for drinking? This hides all aftereffects, and that means that nobody will ever get caught. Besides, you could have these people pay a bit for every dose, even make a profit off of it if you want."

"That's too good to be true. How do I know it'll work?"

"Because it was made by Archsage Morcere. You must have met him if he told us to come here, and even if you haven't, you should at least know his name."

"I mighta heard something like that before," he admitted, scratching his head. "S'hard for me to tell for sure right now, though. Okay, I'll take it. Gimme a minute."

He walked off to another room and returned with a bag full of gold moment later. "S'all in there," he said before letting a ridiculous smile fall over his face, "but I'd like to offer you a drink, too. What d'you say, miss?"

"Sorry, we really have to go," said Lasentis, alarmed but doing her best to not offend her customer by showing it.

"C'mon, s'great. And after that, you can come in the back with me and–"

Did these dragons somehow manage to become as stupid as humans? There was no time for this. "We're leaving now," said Ephidel.

"Nobody asked you," said the man, turning to look at Ephidel for the first time. "I'm only talking to–" he stopped in mid-sentence with a puzzled look. He sat there for a few more moments as he tried desperately to grasp whatever it was he was thinking about, before suddenly standing up and shouting, "You're a human!"

That managed to get the attention of everyone in the room. They all turned to look, and when they saw Ephidel's lack of wings, they too rose in fury. The dragons seemed to particularly hate him for some reason or another, and their alcohol was not helping the situation. Some began to involuntarily grow scales, breath flame, and enlarge their wings, and Ephidel did not hesitate to take the best possible course of action: he grabbed Lasentis by the arm and ran out the door.

The dragons followed him immediately, three coming out the door moments behind them before transforming completely. A fourth passed through the door just after them, but he had lost so much control that he finished transforming while still inside it, destroying a good portion of the building and stopping the others from following them. Not only that, but the three that were following them were still drunken, completely unable to even fly in a straight line. They still had a chance to either defeat them or escape.

Unfortunately, the dragons' wavering paths led them crashing into several nearby buildings. This gathered even more attention, and though a number of angry onlookers began to gather, they seemed far more concerned with the drunkards than Ephidel, if they even noticed him at all. But that meant no magic, for now; that would surely provoke more manaketes against him. Their only hope was to escape the city, and while it was surely no more than a few hundred feet away, it seemed like miles under the circumstances.

They ran as fast as they could, barely outstripping their pursuers. Lasentis spread out her wings, flying a few feet above the ground for a bit of added speed, but Ephidel had no choice but to remain earthbound, and he was growing tired quickly. Slowly he began to fall behind until Lasentis was a dozen, two dozen, a hundred feet away from him. And the fire dragons were closing in.

"Halt," called a commanding voice from behind. "Land now and transform. I will use force if necessary."

The dragons acted as though they heard nothing. Ephidel then heard a fierce roar, one far louder than the ones he had heard the fire dragons make. He risked a brief look behind and saw that an ice dragon had taken to the skies as well and was attempting to subdue the fire dragons. Two of them turned to fight back–a futile gesture–but the third and closest one continued for Ephidel. Though the ice dragon was clearly more powerful, there was no chance that he could defeat his two opponents and reach the third before Ephidel was killed. The morph put out a burst of speed in a vain attempt to escape the city and its prying eyes so that he could defend himself.

He did, soon enough, and found himself utterly exhausted with his pursuer not twenty feet behind him. He continued to run as swiftly as he could as he removed his bag and searched for a tome. He rummaged around for a moment, but suddenly lost his grip on the rough cloth. The entire sack fell to the ground behind him, its contents sprawling out everywhere around it, and there was no chance that he could pick them up. He knew that he had lost; he was completely out of energy. He focused everything on the simple act of running, but he simply could go no faster. But then again, if that was the case, then why was the wind so strong in his face?

He stopped running. The wind was still there, far too intense to occur naturally, and in fact he found Lasentis standing nearby with a tome in hand. He turned to look at the dragon, and was unsurprised to see that he was surrounded by a small whirlwind that battered his wings in every direction at once. Eight massive scythes of air appeared and slammed into him, sending him flying back two dozen feet before falling to the ground. Ephidel immediately went for his fallen things, searching for his own arcwind tome.

He found it and began the incantations with all possible haste. The dragon had recovered and had returned to the air and worked to close the distance, but that was his undoing. There was a slight pattern in his movements, a certain angling of the wings that was particularly vulnerable, and it did not escape Ephidel. Though he was exhausted physically, his magic was far from spent, and he focused all of it in his next blow

He waved his hand thrice, summoning an orb of purest power with each, which floated in a perfect triangle before him. Then with a fourth wave, they coalesced before him and formed the magic seal, the same that appeared before his every other spell, but now brimming with energy. A great gust of wind blew from behind him, and a hurricane once again engulfed the dragon before him, once again eight scythes of air surrounded him, and once again they all slammed into him. But this time, they did not simply send him reeling backwards. With a spray of blood, the dragon's wings were ripped from his body, sending him plummeting to the ground, unconscious.

Ephidel let out a breath of air and felt the tension loosen its grip on him. He found it mildly surprising how had resisted death, how he had feared it. That was not an emotion he was familiar with, and he did not like it.

"Ephidel," called out a strange voice. It took him a moment to realize that it was only Lasentis failing to be scornful. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," he said, bending down to pick up his things.

"Good. Morcere would be angry otherwise." She too bent down to help him pick up his things. "Hurry up, other people are coming and we have to get back home."

How far did her blind loyalty to her mentor go? "We can't do that," said Ephidel. "Morcere put all this together and he wouldn't make it easy to just go back and accomplish nothing. Chances are, that ice dragon official from earlier will question those dragons who tried to kill us, and at least one of them knows who you are. He will want to talk to us, and probably kill me when he does, and since he would also know that we are the apprentices of Morcere, they would have to be more idiotic than even a human to not block the path."

"You're blaming this on Morcere again?" asked Lasentis, her earlier relief replaced with enraged incredulity. She continued to rant on the matter, but Ephidel stopped listening for a moment, having found a piece of parchment among his fallen items covered with Morcere's handwriting. He began to decipher it as best he could.

_Hello, Ephidel. I entrusted this note to Anna to discreetly give to you, because I don't think Lasentis would enjoy reading something like this. As you probably already know, I did indeed devise this entire situation for you, and while it may not make sense now, it will by the end of things._

_Hopefully you've already had your encounter with those particularly hospitable fire dragons. Try not to form any assumptions about all of dragonkind based on them, it took a lot of effort for me to find a group that would almost assuredly drive you out of town. If you are at that stage, do not return either to Drasor or to me. I want no more connections with this than I have to. Head west along the main road until you find Deloy, the city of the earth dragons. Stay hidden along the way, because even though I will ensure that you are not followed, I cannot take care of the humans that live outside the cities._

_Most dragons don't like war anymore. Even if victory is assured, they won't have it. This particularly problem is worsened by the current Divine Dragon King, who in his infinite wisdom, is a complete pacifist. The Earth Dragon King is more sensible, and might aid you in some way or another. Use him to make me the next Divine Dragon King, and we will march on the humans immediately. Destroy this message._

–––Author's Notes–––

We finally can see some dragon culture, and because virtually nothing is stated in cannon about it, I had to make some sweeping generalizations and conclusions. First of all, I deduced that manaketes were carnivorous, based on the fact that their original form had giant abominable fangs in their mouth. I also thought it reasonable that they use their alternate forms to construct large stones buildings that would otherwise be impractical to make, just as the Laguz of Tellius do. The strict drinking laws from were in fact inspired by the Inheritance Cycle [Eragon, etc.], where Saphira drinks large amounts of alcohol and proceeds to accidentally destroy everything.

You may notice how the name and title of "Divine Dragon King Naga" is stated above to be passed on to whoever rules dragonkind at the time, thus accounting for how different histories contradict each other in terms of his or her gender and accomplishments.

If you were wondering, Anna is indeed the very Anna who runs all of the secret shops, among other things. This is my idea of a joke; you may laugh now, either at the joke itself or the fact that I must state that it is indeed a joke. Virtually everything regarding her was taken from Fire Emblem Awakening, [spoilers for that game fill the remainder of this paragraph, I suppose] where she is a playable character with full supports, and from the two that I have seen thus far, she likes nothing more than money. Her swindling here is derived from the fact that her initial class is trickster. She also supposedly declares in the game [though I have not yet seen it myself] that she actually has a large number of identical sisters who are all travelling merchants. As for how she managed to enter the Dragon Dimension at all, she is stated to be "Keeper of the Otherworld Gate", which has strong associations with the Dragon's Gate.

And we also have some new names, and thus new etymologies. The name "Areth" is mostly laziness on my part, as it is in fact a slightly less masculine derivative of "Gareth", the only playable fire dragon in Radiant Dawn. No Ena, granddaughter of white dragon Naesir, you do not count to me.

"Deloy" comes from Ancient Icelandic [at least I believe that is the language] "deloi", which translates as "earth".

And yet again, I humbly request your review. I seem to be getting a reasonable number at this time, but there is always something to critique and I would be glad to hear your opinion.

And here are weapons, if you are interested.

Name: Arcwind  
Type: Anima  
Rank: A  
Range: 1-2  
Weight: 11  
Might: 16  
Hit: 95  
Critical: 10  
Uses: 20  
Weapon Experience: 3  
Effects: Effective against flying units  
Comments: The original statistics in Radiant Dawn placed this tome as only marginally stronger than thunder, so I modified them so that it was better than Fimbulvetr but worse than Excalibur. These modifications were based on the numerical patterns present in both Radiant Dawn and Blazing Sword.


	7. Family Ties

OPENING NOTE

This chapter takes random facts stated in the revised version of chapter 4. If you read that Naga entered battle with a dozen other divine dragons and that only one escaped, I expect this chapter to make full sense. If you read some ridiculous story about how he charged into battle alone that seemed disgustingly out of character for the traditional protector of mankind, then you may consider reading chapter 4 again, at least where Morcere discusses Naga. You may be able to proceed without doing so, but it may make the chapter somewhat less interesting.

Chapter 7

Family Ties

After he sent his apprentices to Drasor, Morcere remained at his house for several hours, continuing to study magic. Most of his work these days were attempts to recreate the Dragon's Gate, but he suspected that his approach was wrong, for progress was extraordinarily slow.

That is not to say that his experiments were fruitless, merely that the fruits were of a different variety than expected. Just yesterday he managed to open a portal, but rather than leading to Elibe, it reached into the world of spirits. Of course no sane person would ever want to go there; all of his tests thus far had resulted in the instant vaporization of whatever passed through it. It had enormous potential as a weapon if he could ever make it more accurate, but while he was still testing it, its durability was the greater issue. After having to rewrite the tome for a third time, he decided to just make a few dozen of them at once so that he could finish testing uninterrupted.

He had been writing for almost four hours now, and although he was still not nearly done yet, it was time for him to go. His uncle must have finally heard of whatever trouble his apprentices had gotten into by now, and he couldn't let him have too much time to think on the matter before confronting him. He rose from his desk and muttered the elder incantations of teleportation magic and a ring of light shone up from beneath his feet before rising upwards. When it had passed over his head, he was no longer standing before his study, but on the central streets of Drasor.

After eight hundred years of making such an entrance, most people were somewhat accustomed to it, at least enough to not give him the confused and frightened stares that they were today. Of course he had actually hoped to be greeted in such a fashion today because if everything was normal, then that could only mean he was too early. Everyone continued about their business quickly enough, though; for as long as he could remember, everyone had been exceedingly respectful to him to the point of irritation, and even now they did not wish to offend him.

Of course that also meant that people were always willing to help him, and right now he needed information. Luckily enough, he found the dragon he had healed at the Gate two weeks ago, and because it was a general policy of his to talk with people in his debt whenever he could, he waved and walked towards the fire dragon.

"Ah, hello, Vur," he said. "I haven't had a chance to see you since the incident. Have you recovered well?"

"Yes, thank to you," he said humbly. "I've recovered completely since then. How are you?"

Morcere never could stand how abominably respectful people were to him but at least here it led the conversation where he wanted it to go. "Not well, actually. I have heard some disturbing rumors recently. Rumors about me."

"Oh. Err, I'm sorry. I don't know."

"What are you sorry about? I doubt you went around telling stories about me. But I think you know; by the looks that everyone's been giving me since I got here, I think everyone does. What's going on?"

Vur looked around uncomfortably before answering. "Well there was a morph in town," he said finally, "and some people say they saw him walking around with your apprentice."

"That's it?" asked Morcere, disappointed.

"What? But everyone hates morphs. And after what happened during the Scouring, I think you would the most." He stopped suddenly, as though he only just realized what he was saying. "Sorry, I was out of line there. I didn't mean to be rude or anything."

"It's fine, really. But that is it then. I'll have to find Lasentis immediately and hear what she has to say for herself."

"Wait, no that's not everything. They were fleeing the city, and a few dragons came to chase them. They came from the bad side of town, and I think they were drunk or something, so a Law Keeper came and tried to stop them. He probably didn't notice the morph. But one dragon got away and followed him, and the Law Keeper only caught up to him a half hour later. It was terrible."

"What was terrible?" asked Morcere. Whatever it was, it sounded like everything had gone according to plan, or at least close enough to it.

"He was dead, and the morph and Lasentis were gone. But the way he died was just terrible. They say they crushed his wings before ripping them off and then left him there lying on the ground. He changed his forms to save his energy, and he looked just like a human, but covered in cuts and with a bloody hole on his back. It looked like he was alive for a while, but he bled to death before anyone found him."

"Ah," said Morcere. He knew that this was a possibility, but he had hoped that it would not come to pass. His goal was to have zero deaths in this coup, save perhaps his uncle, but he knew from the beginning that that was unlikely. Why else would he have packed their bags with Arcwind tomes?

"Thanks for telling me this," he said finally. "But now I have to talk to Lasentis. This sounds nothing like her, so there must be something we don't know."

They said their farewells, and as Vur resumed walking, Morcere warped away, though not to search for his apprentice, of course. Instead he reappeared within the walls of the capital building, causing no small commotion. The general public was not allowed access there, and though Morcere hardly fell into that category, he was still unexpected.

"I'm sorry," he said to the clerk who he knew was in charge. "But this is very urgent. May I speak with the Divine Dragon King?"

The clerk hesitated for a moment, but who would ever dare refuse Morcere? He was well respected by all and knew a large number of particularly influential individuals, and even if those failed, the legends of his unmatched power would be enough to intimidate anyone. The clerk led him to an ornate door that reached a hundred feet upwards to nearly touch the ceiling. Opulently garbed guards opened it for him, and when he stepped inside, shut it again with a resounding thud. Morcere cast a spell to prevent sound from leaving the room so that those guards or any other people could not overhear his conversation, then proceeded forward to the throne.

The Divine Dragon King was well over 10,000 years old, one of the most ancient dragons alive, though his appearance was closer to that of a seventy year old. His head had just begun balding, though he still had a thick white beard that descended to the middle of his chest. The wrinkles on his face curved inwards in a stern expression, accentuated by the scars along his face and arms. But his appearance was far removed from bearing, for the public had always recognized him for his kindness, wisdom, and morals.

"Hello, my nephew," he said calmly. "It's been a long time."

"962 years, my old friend" said Morcere. He did not want to say more than he had to, else any chance of diplomacy would be lost. The two remained silent for a while.

"What is it that you want?" asked Naga. "It saddens me to say it, but I know that you wouldn't come for the sake of long lost friendship."

"I'm sure you heard of the recent death here. "

"Please. Don't tell me that you had something to do with it."

"Unfortunately, I did. He was not killed by my orders, and I did my best to stop it, but he was killed by my apprentice."

"I see. I know that what you say must be true, just as I know that there is more than what you say. I will not ask if you do not wish for me to know, but do you have anything else to say on the matter?"

"This is only the first step for them. They're running now, but they'll be back soon enough."

"Why?"

"Because I asked them to and they agreed."

Naga sighed and ran one hand through his thinning hair, again not talking for the longest time. "I have heard your warning," he said finally. "What is your request?"

"The same request that I came to you with the day after my father died."

"As I feared. I am sorry to say that you have not changed at all this past millennium, Morcere, and so neither has my answer. I will not give you the throne. No matter what strife comes from your attempt here, I have no doubt that it will be nothing compared to what ensues."

Morcere sighed silently to himself. "I'm not quite the monster you make me out to be," he said. "I will not have dragons die unless there's no way around it. And there is. You know that I'll find a way to the human world eventually, and there are a number of dragons willing to join me. I can't wait thousands of more years for you to descend from the throne at your death; that's a long time even for us, and for humans that enough to bring them back to their strength before the Scouring. With every passing year, they grow stronger and we remain the same. Not so very long from now it will be impossible for us to ever return to the land of our birth."

"And what if I do hold the throne for that long? You would not attack then; you are not suicidal, Morcere."

"You will not," said the Archsage. "Within a year, you will descend one way or another, I can promise you that. My plan's already in motion, and it's not something easy to stop, even for me. I need your cooperation now if you want me to even be able to do anything about it. There are lives at stake here."

"Their blood will be on your hands alone," said Naga. "I wish you would turn back from your path, but I know that you are too willful for that. You've always been more cunning than I have, and if you've dedicated yourself to taking the throne, I'm sure you'll succeed, just as you've said.

"However," he said as he straightened his back, his voice growing firmer, "I will oppose you to the end, even if it is futile. Even the smallest chance of preventing another war with humans will be well worth whatever price I must pay."

Morcere closed his eyes and brought a hand to his head with a sigh. This was not going well at all. Just as he had expected, of course, but it was still disappointing. But he knew that he could not give up yet, and even if it was just as futile as Naga's opposition, Morcere changed tactics.

"And you call me the willful one?" he asked, baring his teeth. "Perhaps you ought to take a fine look at yourself before you start accusing me of that."

"And you're still so bitter," said the King, his pitying tone never wavering. "I know how much you've suffered from your father's death, and believe me, I too know how such anguish feels."

Morcere let out a maddened peal of laughter. "You know nothing, just as you always have. You watched my father get ripped apart by morphs and came fleeing back to safety with your tail between your legs, and how are you rewarded? You take my father's name and title–my birthright–for yourself, and not only that, but lead all of dragonkind down a path of weakness and stagnation, all because you are so mindlessly afraid of those pathetic humans."

"I am concerned for the lives of my people. When you have lived as long as I, you truly grow to appreciate the value of each individual life with all its potential ahead of it."

"Don't think I'm so stupid as to actually believe that. A thousand years ago you were every bit as bitter and stubborn and cunning as I was, the two renegades of the Divine Dragon clan. And that didn't change because of your age but because of your wife."

"Don't go there," said the King, sorrow lining his face. "Please."

Morcere grinned. He had found an opening. "And why ever not? She was the one with your idiot pacifism, the one who wanted the humans to live, not you. You pretended to agree for her, despite having spoken words saying just the opposite when she wasn't listening. Yet she remained ignorant and you both remained happy for centuries.

"And then came the Scouring. My father led the royal family against the humans, including the two of you, and everything seemed to be going so well. Sure, some had died, but you, your wife, and your brother were all still alive, and that's what mattered.

"Then came the sorcerer and his morphs, and suddenly things were not so fine, were they? Your wife died stopping a blow aimed at you so that you could escape, I hear, and so you took your advantage and abandoned her and your older brother and left them to die–and would have done the same to me, your old friend and nephew, if my father had not demanded that I stay out of the battle.

"And somehow that changed you. My old friend Leagan was never a useless pitying pacifist, but when Naga became his name, he quickly changed into that. Oh, it took you a while to realize exactly what your wife's death meant, and you were fine for almost a year after that–time that you used to manipulate your way to the throne while my back was turned, I might add.

"But after you ripped my title away from me and came here away from the war, you had time to think about your wife again. A ruthless tyrant by day, but at night the servants could here you screaming your wife's name in your sleep. In time you grew to become the filthy love-filled lizard that you are today, and your sleep was quiet again, but you were still changed. Centuries passed where the world never heard your laughter nor saw your smile, merely your exhausted, mournful gaze. You can't really expect me to believe that you're satisfied with your reign if you've been acting like that throughout it. I know your true ideals are the same as they were a thousand years ago, the same as mine, even if you refuse to admit it."

"Enough!" roared Naga, a bellow so thunderous that Morcere could feel the shockwave of sound. "I will not listen to your lies any longer! Get out!" He was standing now, his fists clenched and chest heaving.

Morcere regarded his uncle coolly for a moment. "My offer still stands," he said quietly. "If you give me the throne, lives will be saved as your wife would have wished, and the humans will be killed as you and I wish. But I warn you that while I am the one behind the rebellion you will experience in these coming weeks, I am not its leader, and once my apprentices reach my contacts, I doubt I can stop it. That is all."

With a brief incantation he removed the sound stopping spell that he had filled the room with earlier to prevent eavesdroppers, then warped back to his house and promptly went to bed. It was early and he had not eaten dinner, but he didn't have the energy to do anything at all. He wouldn't be waiting for the King's response, because he knew that it wasn't coming. Diplomacy had failed, and dragons would surely die.

–––Author's Notes–––

It was rather obvious where I made canonical extrapolations in this chapter, I think, and it all had very little grounding in anything, therefore I will simply proceed to the most important matter in these notes: please review. This is the first chapter where I am unsure if I conveyed what was necessary, specifically in regards to how people perceive Morcere, and if you have the time, why. But because I am severely cautious of people telling me what they think I want to hear, I will not say what my goal with him was, though I suppose I could tell people individually if they state their impressions first. Thank you very much.

Onward to mildly more interesting matters. Leagan comes from Dutch _liagen_, which translates to "lie". And on the off chance that there was any confusion on the matter, it is referring to an untruth, rather than resting horizontally on a supporting surface.

And on the ever so slight chance that anybody is interested and because I already have the information compiled for my own reference, I will begin to include weapon statistics in this section for any tomes that made no appearance in Blazing Sword. This will also be added to previously mentioned tomes in the chapters where they were introduced.

Name: Niflheim  
Type: Dark  
Rank: SS  
Might: 255  
Hit: 0  
Critical: 255  
Weight: 20  
Range: 1-2  
Durability: 5  
Weapon Experience: 4  
Effect: Magic +5  
Comments: This was intended to be a more extreme Eclipse, enhancing its destructive power to ridiculous levels at the cost of a higher rank and weight, and less range and hit. It is of rank SS, denoting a stage one higher than S, as it does in Radiant Dawn. Do note that 255 is the standard maximum numerical value for most in-game statistics. The name is the same as a rough equivalent of the underworld in Norse mythology.

And one final, hopefully not too terribly obnoxious time: this chapter needs reviews far more than any previous one. If I must make revisions to it, I wish to do so with all reasonable haste in order to minimize confusion for you and other readers.


	8. Humans

Chapter 8

Humans

The two had been walking in total silence for over two hours now. Ephidel had tried to convince Lasentis of Morcere's duplicity, but she simply refused to listen to reason. Despite all of his efforts these past two weeks, the only thing he had learned about her was that she hated him and was blindly loyal to her mentor, and so he was not entirely sure how to approach the situation here. He had finally given up for the time being, but Lasentis was still angry, and thus the silence.

Now the sky was slowly starting to dim, and though he would have liked to continue onwards for a while–they had already seen a few dragons flying overhead searching for something, presumably them–he could see that Lasentis was exhausted, emotionally if not physically. Better to hide for the night than risk her perception and reflexes failing her.

They set up camp in a small copse by one of the surrounding mountains, eating nothing but a cold dinner of dried meats. Ephidel remained awake to keep watch for quite some time afterwards–sleep was useful, but unnecessary for him–only awakening Lasentis to take his place a few hours before dawn. The switch occurred without a word and the morph went to his tent and immediately allowed himself to fall unconscious.

– – –

He awoke somewhat earlier than expected, perhaps an hour before dawn. He was quite surprised to see that somebody was standing at the entrance of his tent. A human, and if his horned helm and sparsely placed armor were not enough to show his intentions, the gargantuan axe resting easily on his shoulder certainly was. Ephidel immediately rolled to the side as it came swinging down to where he lay seconds ago. He let loose a weak Elfire spell–he did not have the tome immediately at hand–and though it was far from debilitating, it gave him the time he needed to produce the real Elfire tome from his cloak, and he shot another spell, this one far more powerful. Even though he kept the explosion quite small–he had no desire to burn down his tent while he was still inside–his foe fell to the ground, covered in burns. Ephidel stepped over the unconscious–or dead, but it made no difference now–body to observe the situation outside. He did not like it.

Lasentis was surrounded by two more berserkers, a druid, an assassin, and a sniper all at once. He wondered how she had managed to avoid injury from so many, but it quickly became clear that she did not. Even now, one berserker managed to hit her with the shaft of his axe, breaking her arm, the assassin gave her a number of deep scratches along her abdomen, and the sniper managed to lodge an arrow in her leg. But after every injury, a purple wheel of energy floated above her attacker before forcibly ripping bits of their quintessence away from them and using it to heal her wounds. Even then, she could not last forever, for a serious blow from any of her opponents would probably result in her losing a limb, if not her life, and that was nearly impossible to fix even with magic.

Ephidel immediately rushed forward as he brandished his tome, unleashing another inferno on the nearest berserker, and though the warrior still stood, it seemed as though another blow would be enough to finish him. But this one was not wielding the same enormous axe as the one he had encountered earlier, instead armed with one small enough to be thrown with ease. The metal angrily spun through the air towards him and sliced through part of his sleeve before its enchantment pulled it back through towards its wielder, who expertly caught it. He pulled back his arm for another throw, but not before Ephidel cast another spell and killed him.

Suddenly Ephidel felt a sharp pain in his back. The sniper had somehow managed to get behind him and let lose an arrow, and based on how deeply it had penetrated, it must have been made of silver. Not only that, but the sniper was well out of the range of his magic, which was absurd–bows with that much range had never been made of anything more powerful than iron since the Scouring. Ephidel could not help but wonder how they had acquired such weaponry, particularly when their dirty and tattered clothes marked them as far from rich.

The actual pain of the blow meant nothing to him–it still hurt, but as a morph, he was designed to ignore it–and the battle continued unchanged. The druid turned to Ephidel and began casting Luna at him. The morph quickly stepped around a tree, only barely avoiding the deadly black orbs that would have slammed into him, then rushed closer to his opponent. He knew that he was at a disadvantage against elder magic, so instead of casting Elfire again, he reached into his cloak for his ever-present dagger and slipped it between the druid's ribs before he even knew what had killed him.

By then Lasentis had finished off the other berserker, leaving the two of them against the sniper and the assassin. "Hold him off," said Ephidel, gesturing at assassin. "I'll deal with the sniper and then we can finish him together."

He turned towards his target without waiting for a response, drawing in closer so that he did not need to fear a counterattack. The sniper fired another shot at him as he approached, this one sinking into his shoulder. He was already nocking another arrow even though Ephidel was nearly upon him, but before either of them could act, a wheel of malevolent purple energy appeared above the sniper and orbs of quintessence were drawn from him before letting his corpse fall to the ground.

Ephidel turned to see Lasentis standing not far behind him, but he also saw a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. Then the world flickered red as he felt a pair of knives bite into him, and all was dark.

– – –

When he finally awoke, the first thing he was aware of was how miserable he was. He must have been barely clinging to life for the longest time before finally building up the strength needed to resume consciousness, though he had no idea how long it took for him to finally reach that point.

The next thing that he noticed was that he was moving, which led him to realize that he was floating. He opened his eyes to see Lasentis, her arm in a shoddy splint, plodding on ahead of him.

"Put me down," he said with a surprisingly raspy voice.

"Good," said Lasentis brusquely, "it took you long enough." She did not put him down, however, instead thrusting a dull brown satchel into his hands. "Drink it. You wouldn't while you were asleep, and you need it."

Ephidel willingly downed the entire bitter contents of the vulnerary and felt much better for it. Only now that his strength had returned did Lasentis release her spell on him, and for that he was grateful because he probably would have been unable to stand in his previous state. Of course he was severely ungrateful for a number of other things that had recently happened because of her, but that conversation would happen soon enough.

"How long have I been unconscious?" he asked instead.

"All of yesterday and most of today," came the curt response.

Those were the only words that passed between them during their journey until late that night when they set up camp in another small thicket. They set up their tents, cooked a meal over a small fire–they were finally an acceptable distance away from Drasor for it–and had just finished eating it.

Only then was Ephidel ready to begin the discussion that would almost assuredly reduce Lasentis to–well he was actually not entirely sure what it would reduce her to; he still had trouble predicting what she would do. Whatever her reaction was, it was sure to be far from pleasant, but it was something that had to be done.

"Who were those humans that attacked us?" he asked after they had finished their dinner, thinking it best to begin with the relatively neutral subjects.

"Bandits," said Lasentis. "They're not so rare outside the city, but the King lets them be because he doesn't want a war with the humans here."

"They seem quite well trained and equipped for that to be the case. They make some of the greatest warriors of Elibe look like no more than a common mercenary."

"They've always been this way," said Lasentis with an odd look.

An idea struck Ephidel. "These humans passed through the Gate with the Divine Dragon clan in the early stages of the war, correct? Perhaps all humans were like that before."

And now to inch closer to the real question. "But how did they attack us so quickly? I could understand the assassin, and perhaps the sniper or druid, but most berserkers don't even know the meaning of stealth."

Lasentis paused for a moment before answering. "I heard a lot of bushes rustling," she said, "but there was no wind, so I went to take a look. There was a human berserker there and he tried to attack me, so I killed him, but right after that, all the other ones came too."

Ephidel regarded her coolly for a moment. "You should have woken me immediately," he said. The only response that he received was a guarded expression.

"And what happened at the end of the battle?" he continued. "How did the assassin get past you so quickly?"

"The sniper was open, okay?" snapped Lasentis. "How was I supposed to know that the assassin would get you like that?"

"Because that is what assassins do; it is the very reason that they are called assassins. Besides, I think I have a bit more experience on the battlefield than you do, so perhaps you should listen when I tell you to act." He was growing angry now, and though he did attempt to restrain it–slightly–it had still managed to seep its way into his voice.

Lasentis grit her teeth and her eyes burned with renewed fury. "No!" she shouted. "I will never listen to you."

"I will not stand for that," said Ephidel, his own voice raising. "I could endure this before when you were no more than an irritation, but not anymore. I almost died twice that morning because of nothing short of spiteful negligence on your part, and I will not have this continue."

"You're blaming this on me?" said Lasentis, though her voice was slightly less sure now. "How is this–"

"I really don't care what idiotic excuses you have." interrupted Ephidel. The rage burning inside of him had grown stronger, far stronger than any emotion he felt in a long time. "I have no more patience for you, so I will make this be settled immediately. So I ask this: why do you hate me?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Because I demand it," he said, reaching into his bag for his fimbulvetr tome. "Do not make me use force. You know you still can't beat me."

Lasentis gave him one last defiant look before hanging her head forward and drooping her shoulders. For whatever reason, she was utterly defeated, and was utterly transformed her into an entirely different person. Then again, Ephidel had never seen anything but simmering anger from her, and surely that wasn't all she was. But the morph was more concerned with stilling that growing emotion inside of him, one that was savagely pleased to see her this miserable.

"Early on in the Scouring," began Lasentis in a whispered monotone, "my family was taken from our home and captured by humans. I was out playing then, so they didn't find me, but when I got back, I was alone. I was so young, so I got scared, but then I got angry. I followed the humans' tracks until I finally found them, and–" she stopped for a moment as tears came to her eyes.

"My mom and dad were dead. I saw their corpses by their camp, and the blood was still fresh. And the humans were sitting around a fire with fresh meat and I knew the area, there was no game there, so–" she stifled a sob. As heart wrenching as this tale was supposed to be, Ephidel could not help but be annoyed at her.

"I snuck into their camp," she said when she had finally gotten a hold of herself, "and was going to attack them that night. But then I saw my big sister tied up. She was still alive but the humans were talking about what they would do to her and–and I lost control. I didn't try to, but I started shifting into dragon form in the middle of their camp. They all came and attacked me at once before I even finished transforming and tied me up too. Then they made me watch as they did everything they said they would before to my sister, and then they killed her.

"They were going to do the same to me too, but then I saw a divine dragon with an earth dragon in human form on his back. The humans did too so they stopped and got all their mages and archers ready, but they never got close enough for them to fire. The earth dragon raised one hand and shadows came up from the ground and killed all the humans at once.

"The two came down then–Morcere was the divine dragon and his teacher was the earth dragon–and tried to help me, but they couldn't really. My whole family was dead, my dragonstone destroyed, and I didn't have anything left. I wandered around for a while, then–"

"Enough," said Ephidel with a condescending scowl on his face. "Where are you going with this? Let me make this clear: I don't like you and I only care about your past so much as it affects me. Now answer my question."

Lasentis looked disoriented for a moment before suddenly understanding what was being asked. "You look like them."

Ephidel stopped in puzzlement. "That's it?" he laughed. "You hate me and almost kill me because I happen to look like a human? Did you ever stop and think about how pathetic that sounds? Did you ever stop and think about how almost every dragon still alive suffered the same thing you did? Did you ever stop and think at all?"

He was working himself up into a frenzy. Why? He wasn't accomplishing anything, so why couldn't he stop? "The sheer irony of all this is just disgusting," he continued. "Here you are, attacking me because I look like a human, and here you are acting just as idiotically emotional as they do."

"Shut up!" said Lasentis, tears streaking down her face. "You've never had to deal with this before, so just shut up."

"Deal with what? Humans ripping your life and all you hold dear away from you on a whim? I'm a morph, that's the only reason I exist; that's the only reason I came to this place! Those humans may have made you suffer when they killed your family, but they made me suffer for my entire life. You hate me because I look like a human, but I have every reason to hate humans just as much as you do. Everything that's ever happened to me is their fault and I will never stop until every last one of them is dead, especially my idiot of a creator."

Then pain seared through Ephidel and he fell to the ground. Through all the suffering, though, he knew that it was only a product of his own lack of self-control, and was all the more miserable because of it.

–––Author's Notes–––

What is Fire Emblem without random bandits in an early chapter where nothing important to the plot occurs? I cannot say that I faithfully followed the tradition, as I have attempted to make something at least moderately interesting [if not overly dramatic] happen in the aftermath, but so it is. In regards to the battle itself, its ending was inspired by the fact that morphs have a luck statistic of 0, thus making criticals–and double criticals–extremely likely to occur.

Most of the canonical extrapolation in this chapter was either explained in the text or so insignificant that it is probably not worth noting.

And because now is a reasonable time as any, I would like to thank all of my reviewers who have helped me with various small things, but have done so so many times that it has truly enhanced the piece as a whole. Today thanks go to TheFreelancerSeal for continually catching so many of my typos [among other things], and to my newest reviewer and good friend 3v3rnoob for forcing me to go back to my previous chapters and add at least some sense of setting. You should certainly read some of the formers pieces, just as you should hunt down the latter and force him to write some of his own stories because he is [still] a better writer than me.

Here are the random weapons that do not exist in Elibe:

Name: Silver Longbow  
Type: Bow  
Rank: S  
Range: 2-3  
Weight: 11  
Might: 12  
Hit: 55  
Critical: 0  
Uses: 15  
Weapon Experience: 1  
Effects: none  
Comments: The concept is based on the fact that in Radiant Dawn, there are iron, steel, and silver longbows. As always, it has been modified to account for statistical patterns of Blazing Sword.

Name: Dagger  
Type: –  
Rank: –  
Range: 1  
Weight: 1  
Might: 0  
Hit: 80  
Critical: 15  
Uses: 20  
Weapon Experience: –  
Effects: Any unit can equip. Uses skill instead of strength to calculate damage.  
Comments: I would not bet a penny that this would ever appear in-game, but I believe it to be an interesting concept nonetheless. Its power is based on skill because one cannot use something as small as a dagger to simply hack away at your opponent as you can with a larger weapon; the location that one strikes is far more significant that the power behind the blow. Thanks go to an anonymous reviewer for confirming that my speculation filling the previous sentence is at least somewhat grounded in reality. Regardless, the reason that any unit can equip it is because Ephidel must be able to use it, as he does in various cut scenes in Blazing Sword, and because it felt wrong to lock it to him or his class. I am aware that daggers have existed in the Tellius games, with sages even having access to them in Path of Radiance, but sages do not have a strength statistic in Elibe, not to mention that the concept of the two weapons were completely different.


	9. Gambit

Chapter 9

Gambit

It had been a full week since his apprentices had left, and it was Morcere's last chance to take action. Naga had given no response, and that meant that he would continue to struggle against him and waste lives accordingly, forcing Morcere to take more extreme measures himself. It was a difficult decision to make, but if he had to pick between watching the king die or watching hundreds of other manaketes die, he simply had to choose the former despite the bonds of kinship, fealty, and a forgotten friendship urging him to pick the latter. Not only that, but there were the political implications of his actions as well, and if anyone ever made all the connections, his throne would be lost. He had a plan to deal with that, as always, but it still held some risk and involved some of his most hated contacts.

But the more he thought about it–and he had been doing so for hours every day since his last discussion with Naga–the more he knew that he had to try. He doubted that it would work, but if it did, the political results would be nearly perfect. Banishing any last vestiges of doubt that he still held, Morcere tightened his grip on his stave and invoked a warp spell.

He materialized in the backstreets of a sprawling white city carved into the face of a mountain. The buildings were all utterly devoid of any adornment, the closest thing to artistic merit being the sheer power that resonated from the rigid grey stone that resolutely reached upwards at the sky. There were countless humans bustling about–it was their capital, after all–but not where Morcere stood, in this cramped alleyway that somehow managed to remain dim even in the early afternoon.

But this was where his contact was, though contact was a rather loose word. Morcere only heard of him by accident when he was using magic to spy on this city a few years ago–he didn't even know his name. But he did know that he was the leader of a highly influential merchant guild that in fact had very little to do with selling merchandise and quite a bit more to do with selling covert deaths. This man had suddenly risen to the top of the guild–after his superiors faced a surprising string of missions that they never returned from–and was rumored to be the best assassin the world had ever known. And as much as he hated it, Morcere found himself in need of those services.

The manakete approached the shoddy door that was the back entrance, but before he managed to even reach for the knob, a slat opened and a pair of steely eyes stared at him. "Your business?" came a gravelly voice.

"I've no reason to tell you my business," said Morcere, flaring out his wings, "human."

The slat slammed shut, and some great commotion began to occur inside. Pounding footsteps, raised voices, the faint clinking of armor and weapons. They apparently had quite a system for dealing with intruders, but it would doubtless prove meaningless in the end. Morcere burnt down the door with a flick of a wrist and walked inside to meet his foes.

He found himself confronted with dozens of assassins, snipers, and heroes accompanied by a lone general. They all charged at him at once, but before they could land a single blow, Morcere raised his staff in the air and a burning red light flashed through the room. He closed his eyes to avoid the glare, and when he opened them again, everyone was attacking the person nearest to them, even if they were allies moments ago, and the room was in utter chaos. Quite fitting then that Chaos was in fact the name of his staff that he had used.

Morcere paused for a moment to ensure that everyone in the room was berserk, in part because this was the first time he had used the staff on sentient creatures and was interested to see the results, but mostly because he had to make sure that everyone was in so much of a frenzy that they would not even remember him. To his satisfaction and mild surprise, every person in the room was surrounded by the faint red glow of the enchantment, so he proceeded to search for his contact, occasional sending bursts of flame at anyone who drew too close.

It did not take too long to find who he was looking for, even if the entire building was filled with rampaging lunatics, for he still had a rough idea of the layout from when he had last spied on the place. When he came to a securely locked door that did not have the sounds of battle coming from the other side, he knew that he had found his destination. Unlike most of the others, this door was made of metal, so Morcere simply cast a spell to rip it off its hinges rather than burn it down.

Inside the extravagant room, he found two oddly calm individuals who both looked strangely familiar. He recognized the young male to be the guild leader, and if his skill was anywhere near the level of confidence that radiated from him as he absentmindedly tossed a dagger to himself, then he was probably every bit as dangerous as the rumors suggested.

The female human who stood behind him was a bit more difficult to read; even more so because he had a nagging suspicion that he ought to know her from somewhere. And it wasn't as though her appearance was easy to forget; cold, grey eyes, short blue hair so pale that it was nearly white, and an aura of magical power that nearly marked her as his equal–but not quite. She probably had a sizeable magical resistance, explaining why she wasn't berserk like all the others, and she was holding a restore staff, explaining why the man beside her wasn't as well.

"Do you see that?" said the male to her. "I'll be he's the one who sent everyone on a rampage. Do you think you should punish him?"

"Human lives mean very little to me, boy," said Morcere. "Most of them had only a few decades at best left to then and even if they did have a reasonable length of time to live, they would only go about making more instruments of war.

"But that's not why I'm here. I require your services."

The male slowly looked up with a disgusted scowl. "Shut up," he said, casually hurling his knife at Morcere's face. The manakete raised a hand, causing the weapon to turn around completely before coming to a quivering halt inches away from the assassin's throat. Once the point was made, he let it drop the ground with a clatter.

"I'm not quite that easy to get rid of, human," spat Morcere. "Now as I said, I require your services."

"And I'm not so sure that I'll give them to a dragon like you."

Morcere regarded him coolly for a moment. "What is your name, human?"

"That's no way to address your betters," he said as he with a knowing smile. "You should really show some respect, old man."

Just as expected. Humans could be so difficult at times, but Morcere had no qualms responding in kind. He used his magic to rip the male from his chair and slam him against the wall before surrounding him with a thick ring of fire. Worse than that, though, were the dark energies that he sent through the assassin's body, forcing a sense of dread into him. "I asked what your name was."

The assassin gave him another defiant look, prompting Morcere to drown him in flames for a moment. It was only a moment, and it didn't kill him, but it certainly broke him. He did not seem to be accustomed to any form of pain, even if it was because most people who wanted to give it to him died before they could. "Zakuto," he gasped upon his release.

Morcere released his spells and let him drop to the ground, but he would not let the human escape so easily, especially if he had managed to delude himself into thinking that he was superior to dragonkind.

"Zakuto," repeated the manakete. "I don't like that name very much. Here, why don't I give you a new one, one a bit more fitting for a human? You shall henceforth be known as 'Bag of Dirt'. Is that clear, Bag of Dirt?"

There was no response. Morcere brought his magic to bear again, however, and with all his considerable might crushing down on the human, it was surprising that it took more than a second for the male to give a pathetic "yes sir" in response.

"Excellent," said Morcere, releasing his spell yet again. "Now that you have a better idea of your place, Bag of Dirt, I think you'll be a bit more receptive to my request. I have a target for you, and I'm quite willing to pay just about any price you name if you somehow manage to succeed. I don't see how you really could if you're this pathetic, but I suppose that with a bit of luck, even you could kill someone with their backs turned if they're not expecting an attack and are completely unconscious at the time for good measure.

"But I digress. Your target is the Divine Dragon King and I need him dead by tomorrow. Understood, Bag of Dirt?"

Zakuto stared at him with suspicious disbelief. Perhaps it was too difficult a request for him–the earliest humans worshiped the Divine Dragon King as a god–or perhaps Morcere had been too harsh in convincing him to assist, but the real reason became quickly evident. "Any price I name?" he said slowly.

"Yes, that's what I just said," sneered the manakete. "Is that really the only deciding factor now? Give me a number, I really don't care what it is, but you'll only get a tenth of it now because you'll probably fail anyways."

"100,000," he said with a hideous glint of greed in his eyes.

"Done," replied Morcere. "Wait here while I get your initial charge, Bag of Dirt."

Before even hearing a response, he warped back to his house and retrieved a white gem from an obscure cupboard in his room before immediately warping back.

"This ought to suffice," he said, tossing the stone at Zakuto, who deftly caught it. "Can you get to Drasor by tonight?"

"Ah, yes I can," said Zakuto, his hatred and fear all lost in the pearly white gem that he held in his palm. "My, err, assistant here can warp me there."

Morcere averted his attention away from Zakuto to look at the female behind him. He still felt like he should recognize her, but that wasn't the main issue here; he still had to hide any and all connections with this, even among these humans. These ones would be the first to be attacked once he ascended the throne, and if they somehow managed to defile his name, even if it was only a quiet rumor, it could prove troublesome. It was unlikely, of course, but it was always better to use caution with these sorts of things.

"What is your name?" asked the manakete.

Zakuto began talking before she could. "Oh, she's just–"

"Silence, Bag of Dirt," interrupted Morcere. "This only concerns you if I have to silence her." He turned to look at her again. "Now answer."

"I am Cevair," she said cautiously.

Suddenly Morcere knew who she was. He usually preferred to spy on the humans aurally rather than visually, so it made sense that he would only recognize the voice of the human's prime military advisor.

It was an interesting situation–almost an unbelievable one–to be sure. Why was Vissara, the human king's personal advisor for all military affairs, here beside the leader of a secret assassin's guild? Well she gave a false name, so it couldn't be anything beneficial for the guild.

"And you are a guard here?" continued Morcere, unfazed.

"I am."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite."

"Nothing else whatsoever?"

His insistent questioning was enough to unnerve her, though she barely showed it. Still, this was without a doubt Vissara. He was tempted to kill her now–it would be an enormous loss for the humans–but he thought better of it. He could use her later on, and besides, the human leaders had grown reclusive over the years, so there was little chance of her observations here spreading among the general public.

"Fine then, I'll trust you for the time being, Cevair," said Morcere with undue emphasis on her name. As expected, she gave no response.

"And as for you, Bag of Dirt, I expect to see the results of your work tomorrow, and if you fail me, I will personally hunt you down. And let me assure you that if I do that, you'll wish the Divine Dragon King finished you first. Now that will be all; I take my leave."

– – –

Naga was exhausted. Midnight had surely long passed, but he still could not sleep, just like every other night since he had spoken with Morcere. A thousand thoughts swirled about in his mind at any given moment as he desperately thought of something–anything–that he could do to stop his nephew, but each one was more futile than the last. He would surely come up with something eventually, for his mind was still quite sharp, but even when they were friends, Morcere was always half a step ahead of him.

Tonight was even worse than all the others. He wondered if his apprehension and sleeplessness was starting to get to him, because now they were accompanied by a strange sense of being watched. He was so convinced that he even rose to look for whoever must be spying on him, but nobody was there. Surely he wasn't that old yet, though to be honest he might be.

With a sigh, he finally gave up trying to go to sleep and rose from his simple wooden bed. His wife had always believed in simplicity. He walked through the corridors and halls of the vast building that he lived in–it was shared with all the other major nobles under him–until he reached the small shrine that he had had built in honor of the sacrifice of the last Divine Dragon King and the rest of the royal family who had died with him.

He still felt strange praying, but it was something that his wife had encouraged, and it gave him comfort. He reached for his dragonstone and transformed, giving a quiet growl to get the attention of his ancestors and the spirits, then returned to his human form and knelt on the ground.

"Hello, Usoria," he whispered to his wife's spirit. "It's been a while since I last came to talk to you. I'm still alive now, trying to pass on your wisdom, but I'll join you soon, I think. Either my nephew will send me to meet you or I'll just come myself in a few more centuries, but I'll see you soon anyways. I wish I could say that dragonkind was everything we had both dreamed of so long ago, but we're not quite there yet. I still think you would've done a better job than me as King, but that's the way it is. Well wherever you are, I know you're just fine, and–"

Naga stopped talking as a knife buried itself into his back. He was confused for a moment. How could somebody attack him while in prayer, and why would they be using knives? It was a human, he realized, those sacrilegious, barbaric–no, humans were not inherently evil, they were worth just the same as dragons. But just as he completed the thought, another dagger whistled through the air and sunk into his shoulder.

Fine then. If this human wanted a fight, he would get it. Naga ripped the two blades out of his body, wincing at the pain, then grasped his dragonstone in one hand and let its power flow through him. His wings closed around him, and when they rose to point upwards at the sky again, he was truly the Divine Dragon King, brimming with enough energy to rival a god.

A black streak flashed beneath his massive form, and even for his keen eyes it was difficult to make out the human that it was. It was wielding a light green blade set with a red stone, dashing about with great haste toward him, hacking away at the scales on his side. The weapon was surely designed specifically to kill dragons–otherwise it would not have even pierced his scales–but it was still no more than a scratch to Naga. He lashed out at the human with his tail, and though the blow was deftly sidestepped, his foe was off balance enough to be caught directly in the jet of holy flames that erupted from Naga's mouth, incinerating him on the spot.

Naga remained transformed for a moment, waiting for any more attackers, but it seemed that this human was the only one. He resumed his manakete form with a wince of pain–he could feel the knife wounds again, and they clearly had hit something important–but within minutes people came bursting in to see what the earlier commotion was and were horrified to see that their king was injured. They were going to call Morcere there for his proficiency with staves, but Naga demanded to see a physician instead. His nephew would probably help if he asked–he was not so stupid as to let him suffer with so many onlookers nearby–but Naga was still sorting out his thoughts and feelings about all this.

It had to have been Morcere, he knew that much. It was too close to their last discussion, and the fact that it was a human who did this fit with that, as well; much of Morcere's power came from the mask of respectability that he always wore in public, and if anyone discovered his motives, then his position for the throne was lost.

All this was so troublesome to Naga. He could not understand how his nephew could justify all this to himself, and pitied him all the more because of it. He still feared him as well, of course, but now accompanying these two emotions was the smallest drop of hatred. He didn't know that it was there and he wouldn't admit it if he did, but it was present and potent nonetheless. It worked its way into him and pushed him towards one of the many counters to Morcere's plan that still swirled about his mind even now.

He was dimly aware that he had reached the physician and was lying on a bed as his wounds were treated. He was dimly aware that the sun was rising now. He was dimly aware that should have felt terrible, for he had not slept at all that night, suffered an assassination attempt from the only living member of his family, and had now lost quite a bit of blood. And yet he was more acutely focused than he had been in centuries, all on the single task of reducing his nephew's name to something that every resident of Drasor would spit upon with glee.

–––Author's Notes–––

There is quite a bit of interesting information to give for this chapter, and that combined with the fact that I avoided working on it [I rather dislike this chapter] by elaborating on this section until it was over 1,000 words long. After the fact, I deleted everything and wrote a more streamlined version that will hopefully be more reasonable. If, for whatever reason, you want more information on any of the extrapolations, I would be happy to explain it to you, because there is simply too much to write here alone.

Please review; very few things can make my day better than constructive criticism.

I assume that human technology is slightly above the level shown in Radiant Dawn because a certain Othin of Serenes Forrest has another insane theory that seems reasonable enough with our currently available information.

The religion that Naga was practicing was inspired by Shintoism.

Mentions of magic being used to spy was stolen completely from Gunlord. There is no canonical evidence for it that I know of, but it was necessary and quite possible with my current [made up] model of magic.

Zakuto is yet another concealed joke of mine, as it comes from Latin _sacculum luto_, which literally translates to "bag of dirt". There is a strong negative correlation between how often a character appears and how ridiculous I make them.

Cevair comes from French _deceveir_, which translates to "deceit".

Vissara comes from Latin _vix sacra_, or "barely sacred".

Usoria comes from Latin _uxor_, which translates to "wife". And yes, she is female despite Naga's suggestion that she took the role of Divine Dragon King; the title is completely gender neutral in the original Japanese, but there is no English counterpart to such a word so King is used instead.

And once again, here are weapons for those who wish to know:

Name: Chaos  
Type: Stave  
Rank: S  
Range: 1~Magic / 2  
Uses: 3  
Weapon Experience: 7  
Experience: 60  
Effects: Berserks all units in range, both allies and enemies. Magic + 20.  
Comments: Again, not a weapon that I would expect [or want] to see in-game. The seemingly useless magic boost was given in order to increase the accuracy to ridiculous degrees so that no friend or foe could avoid the attack. As a side note, twenty is the highest statistical boost for a single stat that a weapon has ever granted in canon.


	10. Deloy

Chapter 10

Deloy

It had been five days of utter silence for Ephidel; even now with their destination mere minutes away, the morph spoke not a word to Lasentis, nor she to him. Ephidel had been avoiding thinking about the situation overly much, because whenever he did he felt a feeling of anger descend like a cloud upon him–and he had no interest feeling such counterproductive emotions.

Lasentis was faring far worse, however. All resistance was shattered, rendering her pathetically complacent and perpetually on the verge of tears. Her eyes were slowly growing bloodshot, and she only continued to deteriorate as time passed. She had been completely broken.

But Ephidel knew that there was nothing to be done about it now, and the two silently drudged onwards towards the city of the earth dragons. He distracted himself by examining the city, which was nothing like Drasor, as far as he could tell. Of course he could not tell much, as it was less a city and more a castle, the walls of the vast stone fortress obscuring all from view. It was carved with a series of images that seemed to tell the story of the Scouring.

They walked up to an imposing steel gate that remained tightly shut before them. Ephidel was unsure what to do then, for there appeared to be no way to open it and he doubted that knocking would do anything. Fortunately there was no need for such action, as the gate rose on its own accord with a faint grating noise.

"What's your business here?" barked a fairly old ice dragon before they even took a step forward.

"We must speak with the Earth Dragon King," said Ephidel. Ordinarily he would not be so forward with his response, but because Morcere was the one ultimately in control here, he doubted that he would be denied.

"Follow me," grunted the guard. "He's expecting you, or at least a pair of people who look a lot like you."

They entered the building and the gate closed behind them. There were no windows, but the many lanterns along the walls and ceiling kept the halls very well lit. Many of the walls were carved here as well, and though Ephidel had no eye for such things, the amount of detail was surprising. Many sculptures and paintings were also present, not quite as common as the carvings, but every bit as extravagant.

They passed through several hallways and a few more flights of stairs than Ephidel was comfortable walking, but they finally reached the throne room. The Earth Dragon King sat tall and proud on his throne, his hands tightly clasped in front of him. He looked older than Morcere with his bald head and stern red eyes looking down imperiously on them. He wore a deep red robe with a black cape draped over it, both embroidered with gold stitches.

"You may leave," he said in his deep voice to the ice dragon who had escorted the two travelers. The guard left and Ephidel, Lasentis, and the Earth Dragon King were alone.

"I am Videir," he said, "and you are the envoys of Morcere. I am cognizant of why you have sought my aid and I am quite sure that you must wish to proceed, but Morcere was severely insistent that you devote a considerable sum of time to immersing yourselves in the grandeur of my city. Spend these next few days as you wish, but he was very clear that he wished for you to understand more about dragonkind–particularly you, Ephidel.

"He failed to oblige me as to why he wished it to be so, but know that you are the first individuals who are neither an earth dragon nor one who has sworn to follow us to have ever entered our halls in nine hundred years. Be honored by this privilege, but be humble–the Divine Dragon Clan is not well loved here. None shall cause you harm you while you remain under my protection, but expect no more than that from my subjects.

"Now, you are free to do as you please, but are you in need of anything that I may provide you with?"

"We're fine, you majesty," said Ephidel, recreating the bow that the guard had delivered before. From what he knew, Videir was the second most important person to dragonkind, and it was always useful to flatter important people. "What you offer already is more than enough for us. We are honored to receive your hospitality and the opportunity to speak with you."

Videir smiled at that. "Very well then. But there is one final matter: Morcere left a package for you in my care, and now that you are before me, I will deliver it."

With that he raised a hand and a small chest floated towards them from the side of the room. It presented itself to Ephidel, who took it with a puzzled expression.

"You are surprised," said Videir. It was not a question. "Morcere said you knew little of our ways, but I had hoped that the legends of the Earth Dragon Kings would have endured even through history told from the eyes of humans. But I see that it is not so.

"Our line has long been gifted with the powers of elder magic, and though rarely do we use it in the traditional manner, we have slowly unraveled the secrets of some of its deepest applications. My grandfather discovered how to make the demon dragon, and my father taught Morcere how to use magic, among other great feats. Even now we continue our search, until one day, we can become unkillable. Invincible.

"But I ramble. I am no fool to believe that this will be achieved in my lifetime, much less before our battles soon to come. Pay more heed to that which may actually aid our cause, and from what Morcere spoke to me, it seems as though that which is contained within the chest you hold before you may be capable of doing just that."

Ephidel lifted the hinged lid as prompted, and his eyes widened in surprise. Inside were around twenty crystal figurines of a tall and regal woman with long hair and feathers extending from her head. Goddess Icons. Morcere must have a fortune stored away somewhere; this was worth well over a million gold.

Only then did Ephidel notice the slip of parchment covered with Morcere's illegible scrawl. Lasentis seemed to be trying to see how far away from the morph she could get while still being able to see the note, and the two of them began to read.

_I assume that you are now under the protection of my good friend Videir if you are reading this. Try not to be alone with anyone but him unless you have to because quite frankly most earth dragons would prefer both of you dead than alive, and Videir is the only thing stopping them from that goal. You can trust him with anything so long as you refrain from being idiots, but I doubt that either of you need to worry about that._

_For now, though, you will explore Deloy regardless of what the other earth dragons may think. Ephidel, you know effectively nothing about dragonkind and will need to fix that immediately so long as you are living here. I doubt that you will get a full idea during your short stay there, but learn what you can. Lasentis, see if you can take a look at the recent additions to Videir's personal library; I have not been able to keep up with them for the past century, so there is sure to be something interesting on elder magic that I have not been able to teach you yet._

_The only other thing you might need to know now is about everything that came with this note. I hunted down Anna and bought as many Ashera Icons as she had–and I would like to let you know how much you irritated her Ephidel. She is the only person willing to buy my tomes, so try not to do that in the future. Ironic then how most of these are for you, then; I know how terribly unfortunate morphs tend to be, and in these next few weeks, you'll need all the luck you can get. I was unsure how many you needed, so give the extra to Lasentis and one to Videir as well. Burn this message._

"Well?" asked the King when they finished reading. "What is it that Morcere would speak of?"

"He would like to thank you for your granting your hospitality to us," said Ephidel, "and offer you this gift in return, small though it may be."

Videir gave him a nod of assent to approach the throne, and Ephidel handed him one of the crystal figures before retreating again.

"Hmm. And what does he wish to receive in return? Nothing is free with Morcere; always it is a trade. A generous trade, mind you, but a trade nonetheless."

"If it is not too much to ask, Lasentis would like to look at your esteemed family's recent work in Elder Magic."

"That is truly the extent of his request? I hold no qualms with it; indeed quite the opposite is the truth. All those who can appreciate the magnificence of the great studies of the Earth Dragon Kings are welcome to learn the fell secrets of the dark arts contained within. But tread lightly before this magic, for just as you are capable of using its power, that very same power is capable of using you.

"But again I ramble. You may leave if naught else is required of me."

"We thank you again for your hospitality," said Ephidel with a final bow. With that Videir called the ice dragon from before to escort them to their rooms. After relieving themselves of their travelling gear, they were led to private baths and provided with a fresh pair of clothes, though Ephidel still insisted upon wearing his cloak despite its state of utter disrepair. Besides, the tunic that he was given had uncomfortably large slits running down its back, presumably to prevent the wings that the morph did not have from being confined within the garment.

When he was done, he found the ice dragon waiting just beyond the door. "Videir said that I'm to be your guide for the day," grunted the guard. "Where do you want to go?"

Ephidel thought about it for a moment. Morcere said that he wanted him to get a better understanding of dragon culture, but experiencing it firsthand was likely to be difficult if the earth dragons were as opposed to his presence as Videir and Morcere had suggested. Well surely they would at least have records of their culture somewhere.

"Is there a library?" he asked.

Without a word, the guard turned and began walking down the hall, and a few minutes later, the answer to Ephidel's question was apparent. The room was filled with row upon row of shelves lined with enough books to put the Royal Library of Etruria to shame, and a staircase in the corner of the room suggested that there was even more on another floor. A surprisingly large number of people were scattered about the room, though most were too busy reading to give the newcomer any notice and those who did promptly ignored him.

The morph had no idea how the shelves were organized and doubted that asking for assistance would achieve anything, so he picked a book at random and sat down in a remote corner of the room. To his mild surprise, he found that the ice dragon was still standing nearby and giving the distinct appearance that he wanted very much to be doing nearly anything else at the moment.

"You may leave," said the morph. "I'll be here for a while and I can find my way back to my room on my own."

"The King said that I'm to remain with you while you're outside your room. Everyone'll be less likely to say anything if you're with a dragon."

"Let them say what they want. I'll handle the King, but you leave."

It was a ridiculous statement, even if it was technically true, but it clearly set the guard wondering just how powerful Ephidel was. He turned to leave without further question. And with that, Ephidel opened the book before him and began to read.

He skimmed through it briefly and quickly determined that it was a satiric piece describing the ridiculous exploits of an idiotic human knight from some land named Kurimia. It told the tale of his journey through his country as he slew countless preposterous beasts, from giant scorpions and mad crocodiles to a ferocious creature called a Whippoorwill, whatever it was.

Ephidel did not bother to finish reading it and quietly rose to return it to its shelf and took a new book from the opposite side of the room. He read through a bit and discovered that this too was a work of fiction and thus of no interest to him. He looked at several others over the course of the next few hours, on this floor and many others, but to his irritation, none were historical. They must have been there somewhere, but the morph did not know where and the library was far too large for him to continue picking books at random.

Still, dragonkind's seeming fascination with fiction was some new knowledge, at least, and because it was really the only useful thing he had to work with at the moment, he stopped to think about what it signified about their species. It made sense, he supposed. In the three hundred years that he had watched pass by at Nergal's feet, it seemed that one of the prime forces that pushed mankind forward was the need to more efficiently kill each other. Bern, Ostia, Ilia, and so many others, all their resources were poured into the forge–or the Royal Mage Academy, in the case of Etruria–and while many less militaristic advances were made, they were mere afterthoughts, accidents made while working towards a far more violent goal.

Dragons, on the other hand, had no need for such research; very few things were more efficient killing machines than their talons and breath. Not only that, but because time passed so slowly for them, they could hardly afford to engage in warfare as often as humans did–the would have been extinct long ago if that were the case. Their intellectual movements clearly followed a path entirely different from humanity's, and it seemed that they focused far more on cultural matters. At least that fit with what information he did have; it explained the countless books, the artwork that littered the halls, and Morcere's wish for him to learn all of this nonsense.

This set him thinking of how else the importance of individual lives would affect them. It would certainly play an enormous role in the battles to come, assuming that there would be any, for it seemed that diplomacy would be a feasible option with all but the most stubborn of opponents. But if battles did occur, the suicidal strategies of the Black Fang would crush morale and give opposing forces potential for highly effective propaganda. A tactician for dragonkind would need to be more like that human Mark who those Lycians had employed, refusing to let even a single soldier fall.

But that was not how Ephidel was made to think. Lives were trivial things, expendable, because that was how his master had made him, and while he was confident that he could strategize properly if the need arose, it was difficult to do so without something more concrete to work with. Of course it had already dawned on him that the dragons would not have a tactician of their own, peaceful as they were, and was already quite expecting the task to fall on him.

And with all these thoughts passing through his head, Ephidel also became aware that the library was now virtually empty. It was difficult to be sure–windows seemed to be an alien idea to the earth dragon clan–but he supposed that it was now fairly late at night.

He decided to return to his room where he found a tray of cold meats and a note that apologized for the poor fare and said that they would eat a proper meal the following morning with the King. He indifferently ate the food and as he did so, his mind wandered about the events of the past three weeks. If he were a human, he might have called them unbelievable, though he disdained the term because only an idiot would not believe something that had clearly occurred before their very eyes.

Remarkable might be a better term. Remarkable how much he had learned from Morcere. Remarkable how he even now acted to give humans their long overdue retribution.

Remarkable how stupid he had been five nights ago.

Complete idiocy. He had let his emotions gain control over him, just as humans so often did. Emotions were supposed to be no more than tools for leading misguided humans to their well-deserved doom, but they were so strong then. Strong enough for him to fear them. When would they regain their deadly grip on him, crushing reason to no end? One could not tell until it was too late, it seemed, and what could he really do then?

Ephidel stopped. Here they were again. He stopped for a moment to clear his mind of such thoughts, and while he managed to convince himself that he had successfully removed them, his emotions were reluctant to leave him. Within minutes, he was unwittingly thinking about their argument again.

He was struck yet again by how illogically he had acted; he could think of countless reasons as to why his actions were perhaps the worst possible solutions to their problem. Just because all the other dragons suffered as much as Lasentis did made her pain no less. She was still quite young for a dragon. Morcere had almost explicitly told him that she was emotionally weak when they had first met. The list continued.

"Enough!" said Ephidel aloud. He was above failure. Temporary shortcomings may exist, but outright failure was impossible. This had to be dealt with now. His resolve gave him strength–enough to know that he was still being driven by emotion–but he was beyond caring now. He strode out the room and across the hall towards the door of his hated ally.

Just as he knocked on the door, it occurred to him that this was almost the exact same scenario that started all this trouble in the first place, but it was too late to change it now. Then again, perhaps she was asleep and would not answer, but no, the door creaked open and she looked at him with those careworn eyes that she had worn for the past five days.

"What do you want?" she asked quietly.

"I think we need to talk about our argument," said the morph.

Lasentis looked at him for a moment before giving a sigh. "You might as well come in," she said. It was pathetic really, how broken she had become.

Ephidel walked into her room as Lasentis slumped into a chair. She was still exhausted, even after spending most of the day doing nothing more strenuous than reading. Then again, it seemed as though lack of sleep played a greater role in it than physical exertion.

Now that he was there, however, Ephidel had no idea how to begin; he was made to cause conflicts, not resolve them. Why had he not planned this out beforehand? Fortunately, after a long period of silence, Lasentis began to speak.

"I've been thinking about what you said," she began, "and I know you're right. I was being irrational, and Morcere wouldn't want that."

What? Was this really going to be so simple?

"Everything you said was right," she continued. "I know my life's not been great, but it's the same for everyone else here, including you. We need to be working together so we can make the humans pay for all they've done, and I know it probably doesn't mean anything coming from me, but I'll do what I can to make sure you can get Nergal, too."

Everything was proceeding more smoothly than Ephidel had ever imagined, until his master's name passed through her lips. He felt a gurgling malevolent power churning inside of himself, the very same feeling the preceded one of his fits, but this time he felt no pain, for he had spoken no ill of Nergal. But Lasentis had, and before the morph could form a single thought, he watched as his right hand flew out and slapped her across the face with all the force it could muster.

The manakete was stunned by the unexpected blow, tears coming to her eyes, though not out of pain it seemed. She ran out of the room before Ephidel could speak a word of explanation.

The morph grit his teeth in frustration. This was the night of their argument all over again, only now she would begin to question his motives and keep an even greater distance from him.

And now he knew why. He remembered the story of Kishuna, the first of the feeling morphs that his master had made, and how those two had grown to hate one another. The resulting attacks drove the morph into madness, rendering him mute for fear of inadvertently speaking ill of his master, but that was not enough for Nergal. Pain, fear, and sorrow did not return to him the quintessence that he had wasted.

But Nergal was cunning, if nothing else. It seemed that he had since learned to not only make them suffer pain, but to also force them to submit to his will regardless of whether they still wished to serve him.

That had not happened before, even to Ephidel. His master's grip was growing ever tighter, threatening to suffocate with its omnipresent threat to him and what little he held dear, and it showed no signs of slackening. The morph would not submit so easily; he would resist to the end and work to even overcome it if he could, but it seemed unlikely at the moment–the very thought of defying his master's will sent him sprawling onto the floor, knowing nothing but pain.

–––Author's Notes–––

I feel so slow; it has been ten days since the last chapter. At least this one is somewhat longer and [in my opinion] fairly interesting, so hopefully it was worth the wait.

This is a minor point that I doubt anyone would notice if I did not mention it, but I feel obligated to do so regardless. I have recently analyzed all available images of ice dragons, both transformed and untransformed, and have come to the conclusion that they have no wings, though I cannot begin to comprehend why. And yet because I have noted in earlier chapters how strange Ephidel is without wings, and actually included a mention of an ice dragon in flight, I am going to pretend that they have them regardless. Due to the somewhat feathery crests on their heads, I have decided to make their wings feathery like a divine dragon's, though rather than being white, the color is a light cyan not unlike Ninian's hair. Of course, if there is an official image contradicting this conjecture, I would be quite grateful if you would inform me of it.

There is in fact virtually no information on the earth dragons, and thus much extrapolation was necessary. They have been the traditional enemies of the divine dragons, and all two of them ever shown [though one could argue that Loputous was never shown, but that is beside the point] both had some sort of magical quality about them. I thought it strange for the entire Earth Dragon Clan to wield magic, however, so I limited it only to the royal family. Videir's mention of becoming unkillable is reference to how Medeus says "So long as the darkness in your hearts continues to sustain me...I cannot be...destroyed" or something to a similar effect every time he dies. Everything else regarding the earth dragons should be included in either chapter eleven or twelve [or thirteen or fourteen or somewhere else; I have not decided yet].

The reason that I gave Ephidel such a large number of Goddess Icons is because morphs are simply terrible units because they all have at least a 10-15% chance of receiving a critical blow. And despite how many people hate Ephidel, I cannot have my main character roll over and die that easily, and this was the most logical means that I could think of to circumvent it without thoroughly disregarding such amusing gameplay elements.

The knight mentioned in the book that Ephidel first read was in fact Kieran. Though I only discovered this recently, a whippoorwill is in fact a real creature; a nocturnal bird that lives purely on a diet of insects. Kurimia is the literal transcription of Crimea from Japanese.

The origin of Videir's name is overly complex. Medeus can be [very poorly] transcribed as με δες, which in Greek means "to see". The Latin word of the same meaning is _videre_, and thus Videir. It also received a bias point from this Star Wars fan for sounding vaguely similar to Vader.


	11. Mad Kings

Chapter 11

Mad Kings

"So, Ephidel," began Vidier, "what manner of knowledge do you have in regards to the political workings of dragonkind? I ask only you, for I am told that in such skills you are quite capable of holding your ground against all but the wisest of dragonkind. Not only that, but Lasentis has, in the past, made it apparent that she holds no love for such things."

Ephidel quickly swallowed his food before answering. "What I know is very little before your vast knowledge. I would be honored if you would share your ways with me." He had long since learned how Vidier loved to explain things to all who would listen, and was happy to indulge him.

"Nothing?" asked the Earth Dragon King, taking a bite of some sort of fish. "Very well then, I shall teach you now; few would know better than myself on the matter. Let us begin with the clans.

"We may first discuss the one with which you may be most familiar with–the wind dragon clan. Humans were of the inclination to refer to them as wyverns. They were the weakest and most populous of our kind, and the Ending Winter twisted them the most. For as of yet unknown reasons, they were not forced to take manakete form as the rest of us have, but instead lost the ability to become so altogether, and slowly they descended into madness. No more than beasts they were when we took our leave of Elibe, and none were brought with us.

"The next most numerous and weakest clan is that of the fire dragons. They are estimated to compose roughly three quarters of dragonkind's population, and as such have spread far and wide across this world. The Fire Dragon King Regulus rules from the city of Muspel, far to the south, and though he has no love for humans, the wounds inflicted to him and his clan has made him grow to fear the hardships of war.

"Next are the ice dragons, often twice or even thrice as strong as a fire dragon, but far less numerous–a fifth of our numbers. They too roam freely through the south and west, though they still remain most numerous in the north, for there is their capital, Ischa, where the Ice Dragon King Kyotem rules. She remains but a new ruler, for the old Ice Dragon King was slain in the Scouring, yet she remembers the kindness shown to her people long ago in the land of Ilia, despite the bloody war that since followed, and so she would oppose our cause.

"We of the Earth Dragon Clan are far more powerful, yet far less myriad than they. The three hundred manaketes who live in this city are the limit of our numbers, though we alone remain united in a single location and as such, remain the greatest of the clans.

"The divine clan is ever so slightly stronger than my own, though they number even fewer than we. The clan alone holds little influence, for its members are few and spread wide, but the Divine Dragon King is the leader of our unified race, wielding as much power as all the other monarchs combined. The current Naga will have naught to do with war, as you must surely know; were that not the case, it is doubtful that either of you would be present here.

"The clans are, in law, independent of one another, yet in truth they remain heavily intertwined–never have the clans raised a talon to another, as human kingdoms were wont to do. Each knows their place–the Fire Clan for common labor, the Ice Clan for skilled work, the Earth Clan for great intellectual achievements, and the Divine Clan to unite us. As it stands now, we remain delicately balanced between these needs, and to tip that would invite only destruction to us all. Thus we must tread carefully upon this path we walk, and ensure that all remains in order."

The Earth Dragon King's lecture was suddenly interrupted by a knock on the chamber's gilded doors.

"Your majesty, there is a messenger from the Divine Dragon King who wishes to speak to you," came the muffled voice of the guard. "Will you grant him audience or should I send him away?"

"Under the table," whispered Vidier before raising his voice in reply. "He may enter."

Ephidel ducked out of view as the doors opened and he caught a glimpse of black boots treading towards Vidier. "I bear a message from His Majesty the Divine Dragon King Naga. Two days past, a human assassin made an attempt on his life, and he remains in grievous condition. He claims this to be the work of Morcere in an attempt to gain the throne for himself, and has thus called a Council of Kings to discuss our current situation. Your presence is humbly requested."

"Morcere?" sputtered Vidier. "Impossible! How could one bring oneself to question his patriotism and kindness?" It sounded a bit odd as he said it, but it the messenger seemed not to notice.

"I cannot help but agree, Your Majesty, but the Divine Dragon King claims that that is only a mask he wears in public; that he is truthfully deceitful and malicious, manipulating men like puppets for his grand designs. It could be true, but it is hard to believe, and Naga himself has been acting out of sorts lately–even before the assassination attempt. But forgive me, it's not my place to say anything."

"No matter," said Vidier, "But it sounds as though the true villain here may be Naga. He went mad once before, why not again?"

"Many think the same, but it is difficult to believe either of them. There has been no trouble for it since I left, but that was only a few hours since the Divine Dragon King addressed the people of Drasor, so don't know much."

Vidier regarded him closely for a moment before speaking. "He has called upon the Kings, but what of his clan? Would his kinsmen join in this conflict?"

"They're still debating it amongst themselves."

"Such is the way of the divine dragon," replied the King enigmatically. "Is this the extent of your message?"

"Forgive me, I nearly forgot. I was also asked to deliver this scroll to you. I do not know what it says, but it is from the Divine Dragon King as well."

There was a brief pause as he approached Vidier, and after a few final words, Ephidel heard his footsteps leave the room and the great doors slammed shut behind him. The morph rose from under the table–as did Lasentis–sat down on his chair, and turned to look at Vidier.

The Earth Dragon King had already broken the wax seal on the scroll that he had received, and his eyes seemed to narrow the further he read.

"What a fool," he muttered when he had finished before slowly passing the paper to his two guests. "Read this yourself," he said. "I hold no wish to think of it any longer than necessary."

Ephidel turned the paper towards himself, and was surprised to see that the message was written not by Naga, but by Morcere.

_Now that you are reading this, the situation is already outside of our full control. I was indeed behind the assassination attempt, though the only person who would know of it is the humans' military advisor, and I can assure you that she has told no dragon of this, and probably never will._

_Naga gave a speech promoting some nonsense about peace and unity in these troubled times, but more to the point, he continually blathered on about what a terrible person I am–using a large number of made up "facts", I might add–and has convinced a fair number of people of it. Not everyone, mind you–there are still people in the palace itself willing to, say, pass on a note with the forged seal of the Divine Dragon King on it to an envoy headed for Deloy, so the situation may not be as bad as it seems._

_Of course most people cannot make up their minds on the matter, and a number have outright declared that Naga is losing his mind in his old age, but for the time being, I think that it would be best if I disappeared from Drasor. It may be a setback for now, but I will use it to our advantage. I will be watching the capital and Deloy, so I will remain informed of your plans and act as necessary. Burn this message. Vidier, I remind you that this note, like all others of mine, will burn themselves an hour after it has been opened._

"Burn it if you are done," said Vidier when they looked up. "I have no affinity for anima magics."

Ephidel did so and there was a moment of silence as they all thought about the news.

"Our problem," said Ephidel finally, "is that we cannot allow anyone to learn of our connections with one another. If either myself or Lasentis become associated with you, or you with Morcere, then our chances of victory are lost, so we are constantly under pressure to remain hidden. If we could make our stand in the open, we might succeed, but hidden in the shadows as we are now, we remain helpless."

"And by what method do you propose we achieve this with reasonable speed? Morcere's blunder has forced us to act with great haste, before the clans can decide to take a stand on the matter. The greater number of individuals involved, the greater the risk of discovery and failure."

"Your people have long opposed the rule of the Divine Dragon Clan, correct?"

"It is so."

"And the other clans know this?"

"Indeed."

"I see. What about matters of succession in the Divine Dragon Clan? You said before that Morcere was the last of the royal family, so if Naga were to suddenly disappear, then his claim to the throne would be undisputed."

"So long as the Elders find him worthy, but most nearly always is this the case. What is your scheme?"

Ephidel gave a slight smile and explained.

Vidier looked at him for a moment, as though he could not comprehend his words. "Preposterous," he scoffed. "That would destroy my people."

"Not permanently," reassured Ephidel. "Only long enough for Naga to be dealt with. Once that is done, Morcere will sit on the throne, and negotiations may begin. Of course his position will demand that he offer some form of compensation for your return, so you can rest assured that your clan will benefit in the end."

"I suppose," said Vidier slowly. "But such a drastic measure would be best reserved for when we are in our most dire straits."

"But aren't we? Morcere is in hiding, a fair number of people have grown to hate him, and Naga is working to gain the support of the fire, ice, and divine clans to stop us."

"This is a monumental decision to be making. I will not act with needless haste."

"Were you not the one who said that we must move quickly? Haste here is not needless. It is a risk, yes, but this entire venture is a risk, and you have not faltered yet. For the good of your people, you must do this."

Vidier creased his brow, deep in thought before answering. "I must address the clansmen," he said, "it will take time to convince them of this. But if your plan fails, Ephidel, I will see to it myself that you receive proper retribution."

– – –

Naga sat slumped upon his throne, his aged back bent and twisted far more than usual and his head resting upon the tall backing of his chair. It seemed an uncomfortable position to hold for any length of time–and indeed it was–but any alternative posture would only aggravate the deep wound that he had suffered three days ago. It was healing, but not quickly enough.

Facing him sat Regulus, the Fire Dragon King, and Kyotem, the Ice Dragon King. They were opposites in every way, the former a broad red haired man with a rugged appearance in total contrast with his elegant clothes while the latter was a tall green haired woman whose regal appearance perfectly reflected her stature. Her kind eyes were utterly serene as she sat there, though that was almost surely done merely to irritate Regulus, whose face was locked in an impatient grimace for waiting so long. Naga shared his sentiments, even if he managed to hide it better.

But just as he was about to adjourn the council until the final member arrived, Vidier finally strode into the room and sat down as though nothing were out of the ordinary. Nobody was going to protest for his tardiness–Regulus was too easily intimidated by him, Kyotem was too kind, and Naga would only start an argument–and the Earth Dragon King made no note of apology. This time, however, it did not seem to be an act of defiance, but rather that he was busy thinking of something deeply disturbing.

"We're all here now," wheezed Naga, his chest burning as he spoke, "and as you all know, we are gathered to discuss the continued unity of our clans. You may know the broadest reasons of why at this time, but first I must tell to you the details of it all.

Though it pained him, he raised his voice so that he might tell the tale more properly. "Ten days past, Morcere came to me in private and demanded that I surrender the throne to him, on threat of war. I refused, as any good ruler would, and the traitor left, but one week after that day, late at night, I was attacked by an assassin–a human assassin. He left this grievous wound in me, and though my physician tells me that I recover, I fear that it may be many weeks before I can fully resume my duties.

"But I have seen that is time that I do not have. The following day, I sent men to Morcere's house, but it was deserted; he is on the move now, searching for my throne, doing whatever he can to quench his thirst for blood. Yes, he thirsts for it! He may adorn himself with disguises of kindness and wisdom, but it is merely a mask to hide the hideous fiend that lies beneath the fair surface, one that would manipulate all of dragonkind to reach his goals, no matter how petty.

"And so I ask you, my fellow kings, to lend me your aid. Morcere is cunning, but he cannot oppose the might of all dragonkind. I beg of you, please help until I recover, so that I may deal with this crisis myself. We are on the brink of civil war, and only through cooperation can we prevent it. Will you lend me your strength?"

The other three kings looked at Naga for a time, Regulus tightening his jaw and brow, Kyotem frowning in apprehension, and Vidier, tall and imposing, remaining utterly unmoved. They must be considering what he told them, and so Naga remained silent as well and let them think.

Kyotem was the first to speak. "If what you say is true, then yes, you will need us all." She paused for a moment, as though considering how to say what she felt. "But I can't believe it; he values lives too much. I cannot prove your claims false, though I wish I could, but I do know why you could not find him: he has been my guest at Ischa for the past three days. I would hear what he has to say before I give you my answer."

Naga could not believe what he had heard. Kyotem was always the first to agree with him, and her refusal now was appalling. But she had said that Morcere was in Ischa, and that would explain why. Yes, Morcere must have trapped them all from the beginning.

"So," said the Divine Dragon King, the kind understanding that he was known for melting before the rancor contained in that single word. "He got to you first, didn't he? Leave my halls at once if you would oppose me."

"I do not oppose you," protested Kyotem, "but I can't just blindly give you my aid at a word."

"The words of a traitor mean nothing to me."

Regulus began to laugh at those words. "To think I would here you speak those words to the Ice Dragon King. It's about time Kyotem was put in her place, but I'm afraid this is the one time I agree with her. If you can call someone a traitor that easily, you're as mad as the rumors are saying."

Naga grit his teeth at that. "The only mad one is Morcere, and I can see that he's fooled you as well! But I'll survive with or without your help, and no amount of traitors will stop me."

He was working himself into a frenzy now, his thoughts incoherent. He found that he was standing, screaming every word he spoke though it felt as though fire was burning through his back. It occurred to him that Regulus may well be right with his accusation, but the thought existed for only the briefest of moments before a thousand others overtook it.

"And what say you, Vidier?" he asked, frothing at the mouth. "Where do you stand now?"

The Earth Dragon King rose from his chair, his great presence rendering the room utterly silent. "I would voice no opinion on the matter," he said, "and have no intention of offering such to you for as long as my clan survives. For you see, I had but one purpose at this council, and all else that transpires here means naught to me. That purpose it to announce that henceforth, the Earth Dragon Clan shall be a autonomous entity completely separate and independent from the other clans. We shall endure your maligned rule no more, Naga. We are our own country."

–––Author's Notes–––

Unfortunately, summer break is drawing to a close, and so chapters are quite likely to take even longer than they do now and may become sporadic. I would like to say that I shall update approximately every two weeks, but this will be my first year in college, so I am unsure of the workload and thus can make no promises. I will inform you when I have enough data to have a regular schedule.

The total population of all dragonkind was estimated to be 10,000. It seems to me just barely large enough to form a proper civilization while keeping their numbers relative to humans as small as possible, but really this value is almost purely random guesswork.

I know of no situation in canon where the different clans interact, save for the perpetual opposition between Naga and whatever royal earth dragon happens to exist in the given game, and so I made the almost wholly unjustified deduction that the four clans come in opposite pairs. It works nicely enough in my opinion, considering how we have the clans of fire and ice, and divine [works better if you say "heaven", and the two are close enough] and earth.

Regulus is literally "little king" in Latin. Apparently his name has meaning in English, but this is already what I call him in my mind, and so it shall remain.

Muspel comes from Old Norse _Muspellheim_, and though I am not entirely sure how to properly translate it into English, it is the primeval world of fire in their mythology.

Kyotem comes from Latin _subvertentem_, meaning "misleading", and Japanese _kyokumei_, meaning "title". Recall that she is female with the title of Ice Dragon King.

Ischa comes from English _ischium_, a bone in the pelvis that is connected to another bone called the _ilia_. I find puns amusing.


	12. Battle of Drasor

Chapter 12

Battle of Drasor

Ephidel sat in his tent, maps of Drasor Palace sprawled across the table before him. He pored over them, though any thoughts he had on the matter stayed firmly in his head as he slowly devised a plan of attack. Nobody had bothered him since the camp had been made early that afternoon–none but Vidier would ever willingly see him, after all–so he had made fair progress since then, nearly completing it entirely. He now went over the finer points of his plan, considering all possible scenarios, but really just waiting for Vidier to return so that it might be implemented.

And so when he heard the deep flapping of great leathery wings, he immediately rose from his desk and headed outside to find a thirty-foot tall ebon beast descending from above, each beat of his crimson wings leaving a small hurricane in their wake. It finally hit the ground with a resounding thud and shifted back into his human form, though he was no less imposing because of it.

"Foolishness!" exclaimed Vidier before Ephidel could begin. "Never have I seen an individual more unfit to rule his clan, much less as the Divine Dragon King. To think that the clans once held him in high esteem; naught but utterly mad for a thousand years and now finally revealing it."

"What happened?" asked Ephidel, hoping for Vidier to say something coherent.

"Naga has finally descended into madness," said the Earth Dragon King with a look of disgust. "He fears even his own shadow now, condemning it and all else as a spy of Morcere. He has renounced all of the kings and retreated to his palace, removing all within save for a handful of those blindly and eternally loyal to him. The world crumbles about him from these actions, yet he neither notices nor cares, for his enmity to Morcere has consumed him entirely.

"But now his past folly is apparent, even in his own twisted mind. No longer does he seek to oppose Morcere in the realm of politics, where he has been eternally outmaneuvered, but rather to oppose in force of arms, where the ground remains yet even. He has placed all he has left to him–his power, station, and very life–in a final desperate gambit to slay Morcere, though it may be out of spite if nothing else."

Now this was an interesting development. It may make matters more difficult, but surely nothing that could not be overcome. Only once had Ephidel failed to catch his prey, and he did not intend for that to ever happen again.

"What are their numbers?" he asked. "And of what clan?"

"What information do you think me capable of bringing to light here? I was first to leave Drasor, lest I further provoke Naga's wrath. You must make due without such knowledge."

"It is little inconvenience; the palace still has only one exit, so we can defeat every foe one by one if we manage to seize the gate. Then we can head for the throne room, where Naga will doubtless be waiting for us."

"You assume that we are of fewer number," said Vidier, "and that is unlikely to occur."

"It may be if we only bring a small force. Unless Naga has received help from his clan, we will be individually stronger than any who would oppose us."

"Eventually they may wear us down."

"And that," said Ephidel, "is why I am here. I may be unable to hold my own against a dragon, but my staves will be useful."

Vidier looked thoughtful for a moment. "And what of Lasentis?"

"She cannot, but her siege tomes may be useful." As much as Ephidel would have liked to leave her behind, he knew that they needed something to attack the opposition from afar, and at the moment, his emotion was held well enough in check for him to act accordingly.

"I would suggest sending perhaps four of your sturdiest dragons as well to lead the assault. This number will allow us to move quickly and avoid detection until we are ready to attack, while allowing us to comfortably defend the gate. Not only that, but we'll need to finish our work quickly enough so that civilians do not get involved, because they actually have the numbers to overwhelm us."

"I shall send for more, but I will be accompanying you myself."

"Are you sure? You've been travelling for days without rest." In truth it was more of an issue of the risks associated with having a lord enter the battlefield–if he should fall, all would be lost even if all others survived and their mission was otherwise completed. But it would not do to suggest that it were even possible for Vidier to be defeated, at least while he was present.

"So I have," replied the Earth Dragon King. "Yet without me, what chance have you against Naga? Though he may be mad and he may be wounded, none but I wield the power needed to overcome him."

Ephidel did not truthfully know how powerful Naga was, but it seemed that Vidier did, so he might as well listen. Of course it also helped that his agreement would placate the Earth Dragon King quite nicely.

They spent the next hour refining the plan and discussing who else would join them, before leaving for Drasor.

– – –

When Jou had heard of Naga's plea for help, he did not wait to consult amongst the other members of his clan. He alone came without question, for the sake of Usoria, his lost sister and Naga's wife.

He now stood straight and tall, his white robes loosely hanging over him as he stood before the palace gates. He was the one divine dragon present besides Naga himself, and thus in command of the fire and ice dragons who were judged loyal. He continually scanned every direction for the attack that Naga had claimed was sure to come, but there was nothing, not even civilians. Nobody was allowed to enter during these uncertain times.

The midday sun was bearing down overhead now, causing sweat to drip down his brow, but he paid it no heed and dutifully continued his watch. Yet as he was staring down one of the streets leading to the palace, he felt a shadow pass overhead and looked up to see five earth dragons diving down from above.

Jou cursed himself for falling for such an elementary trick–flying from the direction of the sun–and called for reinforcements. The earth dragons were still a fair distance away, giving the now fully transformed recruits enough time to make for the forts and palisades that they had erected earlier that day, but before they managed to reach them, a small shower of meteors fell, setting the fortifications alight and rendering them no more defensible than the surrounding bare streets.

A few more fireballs rained down on the dragons themselves, and while a few were injured, none died from the attack. Still, it was clear that they had no defensive advantage here, and so Jou gave the command for everyone to fly up to meet the rebels and took wing alongside his subordinates.

But though his men were the most loyal one could hope to find, they were far from prepared for battle. Naga had judged all of his usual guards untrustworthy, leaving only these dragons who were nothing more than willing to lay down their life for him–and quite likely to do it. The twenty of them attacked head on, making no attempts to flank the earth dragons and attacking almost at random. Jou would have given them more precise orders, but he would have to revert to manakete form in order to speak, and that would make him worse than useless.

The earth dragons were reacting far more smoothly, using their built up speed to fly circles around the fire and ice dragons and concentrating their attacks to quickly eliminate one of Jou's men from the battle at a time. The reason for this became apparent when Jou caught a glimpse of a human figure in a black cloak riding atop the largest of them, who was shouting out orders of who to target next, among other things. The divine dragon flapped his massive wings and headed towards the man, but as he drew closer, all five of the dragons unleashed a stream of black flames from their maw, aimed directly at him. He rolled to the side but could not avoid them all and a terrible burning sensation suddenly overcame his back and left wing.

He jerked a few feet downward before falling back out of their range and checking his condition. His wing hurt to move; he would be totally useless in an aerial fight like this, and already the tides were against them. Five of his men had already fallen, and it seemed as though more were soon to follow. Jou reverted to manakete form, knowing that any advantage they might have had was lost.

"Retreat!" he yelled.

Slowly the muddled formation of red and blue dragons turned around in flight and headed for the palace. One more fell to the ground as they did so, but the rest escaped without further injury. Jou halted for a moment to make sure that everyone got through, and briefly considered attempting to hold the gate himself to buy more time, but even though he was probably stronger than most of his foes, any stand he made against their combined efforts would last too short a time to be meaningful.

Besides, he had a plan, even if he hated it, and it had to be followed. He barred the gates as tightly as he could and turned to give new orders to his now untransformed subordinates.

"We can't beat them like this," he said. "Disperse throughout the palace, lock any door you can find, then lie in wait in the southeastern and southwestern wings. Attack when you see an opening and retake the gate. I shall guard Naga and the throne."

Everyone turned to leave without question, some aware at just how desperate such a gambit was, others too inexperienced to understand the implications. Jou stood somewhere between these two feelings, as much as he wished it were otherwise, but those were the best orders he could give, so what else could he do? He was broken from his thoughts when an enormous thud jarred the locked gate behind him.

"Go. Quickly!"

The few remaining dragons rushed out of the room, but Jou stopped one before he left.

"You," said Jou to the fire dragon. "Go to the southwestern wing, but wait for me there. You are not to engage the enemy."

His subordinate nodded and turned down the opposite hall. Jou then left for the throne room as quickly as possible, another resounding boom punctuated by a faint cracking noise sounding behind him. Running as he was, it did not take long to arrive.

"What's going on?" snapped Naga the moment he entered. "Did you surrender the gate?"

"They had spellcasters with them," said Jou, "and destroyed our fortifications from afar. They won't have that advantage in here."

"Preposterous! Drive them out immediately."

"I'm trying, but I don't know if we can. Nobody knows what they're doing, including me, and I am the only one with the strength to resist the earth dragons, but not all at once."

"Then separate them! Or distract them! Your King is relying on you, do not be so quick to fail."

"I mean no disrespect," said Jou uncomfortably, "but do you think it might be better to bide our time? You see how their few elite men are superior to the many lesser clansmen that we have; if we wait for aid from the rest of our clan, the whole situation would be reversed."

"The Divine Dragon Clan shall not move," said Naga with a heavy sigh. "Morcere has seen to that. He must be stopped! The longer he remains unchecked, the more traitors he'll make. Go now and stop him!"

"I don't think that he's really corrupted our entire clan," persisted Jou. "I would have heard about it, or the elders would have done something."

"Not if Morcere didn't want anyone to find out about it. He would never let you know about it because you're actually loyal to the throne, unlike the rest of those traitors. Now go, prove your loyalty again and destroy Morcere."

"At least wait a few more days so you can finish healing. Please reconsider," he begged.

Naga's eyes narrowed. "So you're a traitor too?" he growled.

"No, never that," said Jou. "But I still cannot let you throw your life away."

He reached into his robes to withdraw his dragonstone and transformed as Naga tried to do the same. But the Divine Dragon King's reflexes were dulled with age and injury, and before he could begin to shift, Jou rammed into him, flinging across the room. The ancient manakete bounced off the wall with a sickening crunch before lifelessly flopping to the ground.

Jou quickly returned to manakete form and rushed over to his king's broken form to make sure he was still alive. He was, but only barely, unconscious with a pool of blood slowly forming beneath him. Jou quickly held up a vulnerary to the Divine Dragon King's lips and forced him to drink what he could. He took it away the moment the bleeding stopped, not wanting him to regain consciousness, then drank the rest of it himself. He then hoisted Naga over his shoulder and left the room and went to find the fire dragon he had spoken to earlier.

"Naga's been injured," he said. "Take him and as soon as the gate is recaptured, fly to the west as far as you can. Don't stop, don't let anyone catch you, and don't come back no matter what happens. If he wakes up, he'll probably demand to come back here, but don't let him; he's still too hurt."

"But if the Divine Dragon King's gone, why would everyone keep fighting?"

"They won't, I'll make sure of it. They'll be safe, I promise you, and so will Naga if you do your duty here."

The fire dragon hesitated for a moment, but Jou gave him no chance to disagree, thrusting Naga into his hands and turning to leave. He had no intention of getting the others to safety, though. None of them would ever leave the palace alive, himself included.

– – –

Ephidel stood a few yards behind the gate, which Vidier had finally managed to destroy. But rather than finding himself confronted with a dozen slavering dragons, the entrance hall was completely empty. They could not very well go on the offensive here–the gate was too valuable a position and both spellcasters needed to be guarded–so Ephidel settled for sending a scout.

"Saishi," he said. "Find out what's in the adjacent rooms."

One dragon stepped forward to place a massive paw on the nearest of the fifty foot tall doors, but it remained firmly shut. She moved over to the next and did the same thing, but again the door did not move. One by one Saishi tried the different passages, and one by one they barred her path until it was clear that every last one was locked tightly.

It was a fairly obvious maneuver that the opposition took, hiding like this. Why they were doing it was unclear, but in the end goal was still just to find Naga, and he would be waiting in the throne room. He called up an image of the palace map in his mind, reconsidering the best way to approach it.

"Destroy the northeastern door," he finally said.

When Saishi managed to do knock it down, she cautiously poked her head through the door and gave a snort of affirmation before passing through the threshold entirely. Ephidel paused for a moment, listening for the crackle of flames or the clack of talons, but he heard nothing.

"Good. Now come back and guard the gate; we'll continue ourselves from here."

Saishi obeyed, though she made a point to lower her massive head towards Ephidel and give him a piercing stare. Like the other earth dragons, she would listen to him, but only because Vidier commanded it, and had no qualms explaining that to him.

Of course Ephidel was hardly intimidated, and headed into the room that she had just opened for him with Lasentis, Vidier, and the other three earth dragons behind him. It was a spacious dining hall, large enough to allow for an aerial battle, and thus large enough to make the enemy commander try to avoid a fight there. All the doors here were locked as well, but just as before, it was no difficulty for the earth dragons to knock them down.

They proceeded to the next room–a kitchen, as Ephidel recalled–and again no opposition. After all, the room was quite compact, limiting mobility too much to make a battle feasible for either side. The earth dragons all returned to manakete form to navigate around the closely packed countertops, but the smallest of them transformed again for a brief moment after they had finished to knock down the door to the next room.

They were almost there now, with only a single hallway lying between them and the throne. It was long, but mostly straight, making it easy to see that there were no foes waiting to ambush them. Ephidel had not thought that it would be so simple, but the enemy clearly had no more than the barest understanding of warfare, so he supposed that they would leave a direct path to the throne unguarded. Of course even if they were so stupid as to leave the throne itself unguarded, Naga would still be there.

Unlike the rest of the doors, the one waiting at the end of the hallway was so small that only a single untransformed dragon could pass through at a time. But a more important difference was that there was a sliver of light shining along one side of it–somebody had passed through already and left it just barely ajar.

Could it be a trap? If it was, it was a strange one. Why lock all the doors in the first place? They were only delaying the inevitable.

But if there was a trap, it was not something that could be avoided. The morph would have preferred that they search the entire castle for the other dragons before attempting to seize the throne, but if it took too long, the citizens of Drasor may become curious enough to enter the palace, and at that point they may as well turn around and fly back to Deloy.

Slowly, Ephidel reached for the knob, silently swung the door open, and stepped beyond the threshold.

He stood now in a corner of the throne room, the gilded seat standing a well over a hundred feet before him and several yards to the left. Sitting upon the throne was a tall divine dragon no older than Morcere, clad not in royal garbs, but a plain white robe. He sat stone still until the entire party had entered the room, then rose to address them.

"You are too late," he said, his voice echoing through the room. "Naga is gone, and while I still breath, I shall not let you find him."

Vidier looked sharply at him before barking out orders. "Geen, Erick, Nims, make your way back to the gate and search the horizons. Follow all who you find in flight."

"An admirable effort," replied Jou, "but it is too late. My men were hiding by the gate when you entered, past doors you wouldn't take, and the moment you left, they took it back themselves. I would guess by your fewer numbers now that you left a guard, but I don't think that a lone dragon, even of the earth clan, could stand up against a dozen fire and ice dragons at once. By the time you break through them now, Naga will be long gone."

"Go," spat Vidier, gritting his teeth.

The three earth dragons left the room, but Ephidel stepped forward to address the divine dragon before him. "Do the lives of your men mean so little to you?" he asked. "You can stop this now if you tell us where you sent him."

"I value their lives as much as my own, and I would gladly lay down my life for my King. You'll hear nothing from me."

Ephidel might have continued further, but Jou seemed too adamant in his decision, and time was scarce. He would be more willing to talk after Vidier crushed him.

"I see that words mean nothing to you; this debate must be settled with force, for that is the only thing you might listen to." He took a step back so that Vidier stood between him and Jou.

"You had best leave, Ephidel," said the Earth Dragon King, clearly irritated at being introduced as no more than a violent ultimatum. "He is beyond your strength. You as well, Lasentis."

"I remain here," said Ephidel, not because he had any delusions of joining the battle, but rather because he knew that if anyone was able to get the information they needed from Jou, he could. "But I'll not get involved."

"If he's staying, I'm staying," said Lasentis. Ephidel glanced at her and was confronted with a look of anger and distrust, but at that time, it was not important.

"Fine," said Vidier, brandishing his dragonstone. "This shall take mere moments."

"But even that means failure for you," replied Jou, responding in kind, "and that's all that matters. Yet you'll find me more stubborn than you think."

The two transformed at once and leapt through the air at one another. Vidier was slightly larger, and managed to slam Jou against the wall behind the throne, but before he could unleash a more powerful blow, the divine dragon squirmed free of his grip and took to the air. He unleashed a burst of holy flames from his mouth, causing Vidier to swerve to the side to avoid it, but when the gap between the two of them had closed, his talons flashed out, leaving the Earth Dragon King with a bloody scratch along his side.

The two pulled apart for a moment, then clashed again. Vidier charged as he had before, but just as they were to meet, he pulled his wings to his back, dropping down a few yards to snap out at his foe's exposed underbelly. Jou jerked aside, but not quickly enough to avoid Vidier's teeth tearing off the tip of his tail. He roared in pain, then retreated to the opposite side of the room, spewing out flame as he went. The earth dragon evaded most of it, but some managed to singe his left foreleg. Any advantage that his superior bulk offered was negated by the injury, so he replicated the same maneuver that Jou had just performed. Black flame met white, and the room was awash in blinding light and shadow.

When Ephidel could see again, a haggard Vidier was yet again locked in combat with a now burned and bloodied Jou. Their wounds were slowing them down now, and both dragons quickly accumulated a long list of injuries, some minor, some debilitating. Jou had several long scratches running down his back, and one of his hind legs appeared to be broken, but Vidier was slowly dripping blood from his mouth, some of it his foe's, but mostly his own.

The two dragons seemed evenly matched until Vidier managed to slash through the membrane on Jou's left wing. The divine dragon flinched and tried to drag Vidier to the ground with him as he fell, but the Earth Dragon King easily avoided the futile gesture. He took a deep breath of air through his slitted nostrils, then mercilessly discharged a torrent of ebon flames from his gaping maw, spewing it out for nearly half a minute. When his jaws finally closed, only the bones of his foe were recognizable, though even those were charred and brittle.

There was no sound but Vidier's ragged breathing for a moment, but suddenly Ephidel felt a surge of magic in the room, and then came the noise of slow applause.

"Well done, my friends," said Morcere. "I warped over here as soon as I could; if you'd waited a minute longer before engaging Jou, I could have helped you, but it seems that my help wasn't needed. Get down here Vidier, you'll die if you keep this up."

Vidier descended to the ground and resumed his manakete form.

"Sorry about this," said Morcere as he firmly struck him over the head with his staff. "We have to keep this realistic for now, but you'll be rewarded in due time."

With a flick of his wrist, Morcere lifted the Earth Dragon King's unconscious form from the ground and had him float a few inches off the ground behind him.

"I'll explain all of this in a moment," he said to Ephidel and Lasentis, "but right now I have to deal with the people of Drasor. Here, take this."

He thrust a mirror into Ephidel's hands, apparently with a spell cast on it, for he could see and hear a large crowd of manaketes surrounding the palace entrance. He would very much like to examine whatever enchantment was placed on this mirror, but for the moment he was more concerned with the fact that the people in it appeared to be quite apprehensive–and perhaps a bit excited?–about something.

"I'll return with all reasonable haste," said Morcere. "I've no idea how long that might be, but make sure that nobody finds you until then."

He then warped away with Vidier in tow, and Ephidel saw him standing before the people in the mirror a few moments later, his mere presence causing the crowd to quiet. But even in their silence, they were still exploding with questions; of that there was no doubt.

"People of Drasor," began Morcere. "I stand before you bearing terrible news. Not half an hour ago, the Earth Dragon King Vidier and his strongest warriors made battle where you now stand. My dear uncle's guards were unprepared for such an assault, and you see on the floor behind me the results of their cowardly attack.

"But they were not content with the spilling of common blood, no, they would not stop until the Divine Dragon King was dead at their feet. They stormed the palace, killing and pilfering all they could find, until they turned their treacherous gaze towards the throne room. Only then was I aware of their presence, thanks to an old spell that informed me of any unwelcome visitors there, and I left the care of Ice Dragon King Kyotem in Ischa to come here immediately, but I was too late–Naga was already dead."

He paused for a moment and took a deep breath, his eyes growing moist. The crowd was silent.

"I'm ashamed to admit it, but at that moment, acutely aware of my failure, I lost control. I obliterated the earth dragon nearest to me, and the others fled. But I caught one, the one who I knew was responsible for this madness: Vidier. I struck him down, though I did not kill him, and I forced him to speak of every villainy he had committed in his lust for power. But even then I did not kill him, for that would be too kind a fate for him. Instead he shall return to his throne, and watch in despair as he spends the rest of his life slaving away in a futile attempt to repair some small fraction of his crimes. I personally would be watching over him as he did so, ensuring that his greed could never damage dragonkind again.

"But that is not all that I would do.

"Naga is gone, and so the royal family of the Divine Dragon Clan has dwindled down to one. I would continue in my uncle's footsteps, continue along the path of peace and prosperity that he had paved through so many centuries of his life. He may have had troubled times just as his rule began and just as it ended, but that time between then, it was a golden age. If you would have me now, I would continue that golden age for all, just as Naga would have wanted."

He was silent then, as was the crowd. Then a single fire dragon stepped forward and spoke. "I don't know about everyone else," he said, "but I'm glad that at least one good thing happened today, Divine Dragon King Naga."

Morcere smiled at that, but it was a sad smile. "No," he said, shaking his head. "Good or bad, I'll never be anyone other than Morcere. But if you wish for the burden of the throne to be passed onto me, I shall bear it."

Only then did the audience truly break their silence. One, perhaps two among them scoffed and snarled at the traitor. All others stood in applause, a relieved smile on their faces.

–––Author's Notes–––

I do apologize for again taking even longer to release this chapter, but a number of things have been preventing me from writing these past three weeks. Some of it was travel, some of it [an obnoxiously large portion of it] was me being forced to attend a variety of social activities, and some of it me saying a very long goodbye to my PlayStation before I left for school. I am still hopeful that I can release chapters every other week in the future, but again I cannot say because tomorrow is my first day of class.

I do wish I could lob in an enormous battle at the climax of this and every other arc, but it is difficult to do so realistically when the dragon population is so small. As it is with only just over twenty deaths, that means that 0.2% of the entire population died. It looks small, but the equivalent in today's society would be over 8,000,000. Any more than this would have major socioeconomic ramifications that would take far too long to settle over the course of the story, so large battles are not allowed just yet. Hopefully this small-scale one was exciting enough, but it still feels so anti-climactic to me.

I have extrapolated that dragons heal at a much faster rate than humans. This was based on the fact that somebody [probably Ranulf, perhaps Skrimir] stated that laguz rarely get sick, and from this I made the clear, obvious, and logical deduction that they simply must also heal wounds at a faster rate as well. For some reason I feel as though there might be more explicit support somewhere or another, but if there is, I do not recall it.

Both Jou and Saishi come from the name of my favorite living composer, Joe Hisaishi. The three have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but I was listening to Hisaishi's music as I was writing this, and all the social activities that I am being forced to attend are sucking the life energy from me, making my names even less original than usual.

And on that note, Geen, Erick, and Nims come from the English phrase "Generic Names".

And another weapon appears, even if its name is never explicitly stated:

Name: Meteor  
Type: Fire  
Rank: B  
Might: 14  
Hit: 70  
Critical: 0  
Weight: 20  
Range: 3-10  
Durability: 5  
Weapon Experience: 1  
Comments: Unsure if I mentioned this before, but when stealing weapons that existed in both Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, I will only take the data of the latter into account. Not that anyone would ever be so bored as to actually compare the data.


	13. Reward

Chapter 13

Reward

Ephidel sat alone in a small prison, the omnipresent gloom rendering even his sharp eyes useless, and the silence so absolute that he could hear the shuffling of feet through the ceiling. Iron bars kept the cell entrance tightly shut, but of course the morph knew that–he locked it himself and held the key even now; it was not to keep himself in, but others out. He was surely a fugitive now–nothing he wasn't used to–and until Morcere came to find him, there was no better place to stay well out of sight, particularly when these cells seemed to be almost wholly unused.

Even without the sun, Ephidel knew that nightfall must be coming soon, and with it, Morcere. He was not disappointed.

"I see you picked a wise place to hide," whispered the archsage as he warped in the room, his voice echoing through the deserted rooms. "But I think we'll find a new one before we begin our discussion. Nobody is watching my old house."

Ephidel felt the familiar surge of elder magic flowing from Morcere to his body and quickly building up. He released the energy, and what little of his surroundings he could see blurred, coming back into focus as the immaculate, if somewhat dusty interior of his mentor's house. Somewhat expectedly, he also found Vidier and Lasentis standing beside him.

"Well now that we're all here," said Morcere, "we may as well begin. Everything worked well enough, so I suppose I can stop being so paranoid. Any questions you'd like to ask?"

"What in the name of the Goddess happened today?" exclaimed Vidier, as though waiting to ask it for hours. "Why don't you start there?"

"Are you still complaining about that? I explained why it was necessary to you already; you could never pretend to be unconscious for so long while I was giving a speech defiling your good name, and I certainly couldn't have asked you to kindly let me beat you unconscious. I healed all of your wounds before you could feel it, so it wasn't all that terrible."

"What about Naga?" asked Ephidel before Vidier could reply.

"Ah, yes," said Morcere, a grim look on his face. "The situation is less than ideal, but it's workable. I was able to get everyone to believe that Jou's remains were in fact that of the old Divine Dragon King, and everybody who worked directly beside him was already dead, so nobody even knew that he was at the palace at all.

"As for the real Naga, he is indeed still alive, but I have seen to it that he'll not bother us for quite some time."

"Do kindly explain," interrupted Vidier, "how you have dealt with him if he remains yet living."

"Think about what you're suggesting there. You may need to command by the brute force of spoken word and slashing claw, as does nearly every other ruler, but that is not a limitation that I have. Clearly words had already failed here, and though I still could have struck Naga and his escort down with no great effort, I would always choose the path that involves fewer deaths when it is present. So instead I laid Naga in an enchanted sleep sure to last for months, and cast a spell upon the fire dragon who bore him so that he might not tire. His orders were to fly continually west–a region so vast that we have yet to properly explore it, I might remind you–and so when Naga finally does awaken, he'll not have the slightest clue of where he is. He could always bumble around the continent until he found his way back to Drasor, but that could take many years, and by then my position will be secure. Really, this exile is best for everyone."

Vidier frowned, but seemed to accept Morcere's argument. Then Lasentis suddenly spoke up.

"Where were you the whole time?" she asked, almost pleaded.

"Yes, you have a right to know that as well," he said in a calming tone. "I took refuge in Ischa with Ice Dragon King Kyotem, mostly just so she would be more likely to doubt Naga and support me, but that wasn't all I did.

"You see, the humans here have long been discontent with their current rulers. Their kings have for many generations poured all their resources into their military, fearing that we would one day attempt to destroy them. But that came at a cost, as all things do, and their basic domestic needs have gone mostly unanswered for centuries. They couldn't quite do anything about it–the king did have all the weaponry, after all–but the balance of power has been shifting recently, and of course I couldn't help but nudge it along.

"The human king's military advisor, Vissara–though apparently she takes on other names when in need of stealth–has covertly begun to rally what forces she can against the King. She is an extremely accomplished magic user, said to be a distant relative of Elimine of the Eight Demons, and as such has been spying on us every bit as closely I have been spying on them. She knows about the recent change in rulers that we've gone through, and thinks it a moment of weakness. She wants to strike us now and with us defeated, end the humans' focus on warfare, but the King disagrees. Defense was not the only reason he supported the military–he also has a highly profitable deal with several large weapon manufacturers."

"So you temporary granted your assistance to the human King?" asked Vidier.

"Just the opposite," said Morcere. "The thought occurred to me, of course, but only briefly before being tossed aside. The key issue here is that we cannot have these humans standing behind us as we charge forward to retake Elibe. While the continued complacent, greed-filled reign of the current king would be far simpler to destroy than those under Vissara's command, that is the very reason that they must lose.

"I have promised dragonkind a rule of peace and prosperity, and cannot turn back on my word of my own volition now, so we must make the people want this new war, and what better way to do it than make it appear a legitimate threat? I am confident that we could best them–they haven't a small fragment of their numbers during the Scouring–but still I can do nothing until they initiate the conflict. No, I spent my time in their capital doing whatever I could to give Vissara an advantage. She's not queen yet, but it will happen in good time, and the removal of the humans with it.

"If that is all then," said Vidier, "what is this rumor I hear of your punishment for the Earth Clan? Be warned, I shall not tolerate lies or honeyed words, but I shall expect due compensation."

"That? A trivial matter. I am forcing an end to your isolationist policies, and as such your people shall provide goods to the rest of dragonkind at a severely reduced cost, as defined by me. That's how I phrased it to the public, at least, but since you earth dragons have never bothered to trade with anyone in millennia, nobody really knows how much everything you have is worth, so I can set the balance of trade heavily in your favor. My current plan should net you a profit well over a million gold pieces per year; consider it payment for your assistance these past few weeks. Just make sure you keep your people as tight-lipped as always, otherwise the rumors of your excessive wealth will set others wondering. Are you satisfied?"

"I am indeed, Morcere," said Vidier. "If that is all, I have no further questions."

"Good. We may as well all go back to our ordinary business, then."

Before he could say a word, Ephidel found himself surrounded with the magic seal of warp magic and saw an identical circle form about the other three people present. There was no use resisting, wherever he was going, but to his surprise, he found that he had warped no more than a yard to his left, as had Morcere and Lasentis, though Vidier was gone.

"Sorry about that," explained Morcere. "Though Vidier can't use warp magic himself, I'm fairly certain that he can at least sense it, and I didn't want him to know that we would still be talking after he left. No, we're not going to dethrone him, too, I just don't quite want him to know what reward I'm giving you for your help here. He thinks he's getting a good deal from me, but what I'm offering to you two is quite literally priceless."

With that he produced a two ornate circlets of purest gold, set with a bright blue stone in the center. "These are master crowns," he said, now solemn, "lost relics of a lost world. They are exceedingly rare, but when used by those of great strength, it unleashes their true potential, letting them stand head and shoulders above those who were once their equals. Even to those who thought they reached their limit, it allows them to grow yet further. And not only that, but it gives one's mind a great spark of understanding, and new skills are learned in moments when they would have once taken years.

"I give these crowns to you now, and with it, the title of archsage." He held out one of the precious bands in his left hand, towards his oldest apprentice. "Come, Lasentis."

The young dragon stepped forward and took the circlet from her mentor, raising it with both hands to her head. The moment it rested there, bolts of lightning arced towards her, though she seemed unfazed. Blinding light shone out beneath her and rose to surround her, growing so bright that Ephidel had to avert his gaze. But then it vanished, and when he looked back up again, she was gone.

The light quickly returned a few yards away, and Lasentis reappeared with it, but she seemed somehow changed. Most apparent was the long white cape she now wore over her light purple robes, trimmed in gold and miraculously flowing behind her despite the lack of wind. But beyond that, she seemed somehow taller, almost regal, and far more powerful than she had been before.

"How do you feel?" asked Morcere.

"Great," said Lasentis, her lips for the briefest moment curving up in a smile. "Stronger than ever."

"That is good." Then Morcere turned to his other apprentice. "It's your turn now, Ephidel."

The morph stepped forward, but before he could grasp his prize, Lasentis stood in his way.

"Please don't give it to him," she said, all traces of her former happiness completely gone. "We can't trust him."

"What?" barked Morcere. "When did this happen?"

Lasentis looked around uncomfortably, seemingly beginning to doubt herself now. "There was kind of a lot," she mumbled.

"Hmph. That's not very useful. I suppose I'll just have to search through all my spies then." Morcere muttered a few words of magic, and a small black figure rose from the ground and wriggled up to Morcere's skull, disappearing inside of it. The old archsage stared off into space for a time, seemingly lost in thought, before snapping to attention.

"You're both idiots," he said. It was a light and joking tone, delivered with a smile, but Ephidel could tell that he really meant it to at least some degree. "Master your emotion and it will serve you well, let emotion be your master and you will suffer. I've told you this before Lasentis, you should know it by now, and Ephidel, I thought you already did. I am not asking the two of you to become close friends, merely that you learn to work together. You are my right and left hands, and there is no denying that I need you both, fully functioning and not trying to kill each other. Do you understand?

Ephidel inclined his head in a brief, sharp movement as Lasentis slowly nodded.

"You seem unsure. Fine then. If you won't trust Ephidel on his word, at least trust my own. I assure you that he will not cause you harm."

"I'm not worried about me," she said.

"Oh that's it? Do you really think I could be bested so easily? The two of you may be brilliant students, but neither of you are in danger of surpassing my strength just yet. I'll be fine, as always. But you two won't if you keep this up. You will both make an effort to correct this, yes? I need my hands to work together, not to strangle one another."

Lasentis sullenly nodded, and Ephidel duly agreed as well.

"Good. Now claim your own reward, Ephidel."

The morph stepped forward and took the crown and placed it on his brow. Again white lightning arced around him and light swelled up from beneath his feet, but now the blinding brightness was not before, but around him, and even with his eyes tightly shut, its brilliance was overpowering. He could feel the irresistible power of the crown–of the quintessence stored within it–flow through his body.

But the rush of power quickly slowed to a trickle and ceased altogether, the light faded, and Ephidel opened his eyes.

"And how do you feel?" asked Morcere.

Ephidel stopped to think about it. More powerful, yes, but in what way? He noticed that his old cloak–though dim purple rags might have been a more accurate description–was replaced now with a fine cloak of purest black, trimmed with bright gold and lined with twisted runes of power.

But he also felt a strange presence of magic inside him, similar and yet wholly distinct from the anima and staves that he knew. He was unsure what the alien presence meant, but perhaps it would become clear if he cast magic, and on that whim he summoned a wreath of flames that swirled around him before shooting out in every direction at once, though he quenched the inferno before it burnt anything. The spell shed no light on that alien presence, but the ease with which he cast and uncast the spell undoubtedly confirmed his strength.

"I think that's answer enough," smiled Morcere. "Now I'm going to be a bit too busy during the day but I will still teach both of you. We should probably start now just to get a better idea of what just happened, but you've both done enough today, so I think I'll make this one short.

"We'll begin with the fundamental theories of each of the types of magic, then depending on what happens, we might have to do a bit more. Some of this will be repetitive, yes, but the two of you have largely different backgrounds, and this is important, so bear with me.

"For the sake of thoroughness, I suppose we may as well start with what you should both already be familiar with: anima. Strength for this magic comes from one's ability to understand and control spirits, which only the wise may do. Its power stems from the elements, as you well know, and it is the simplest type of spell to learn, offering good fundamentals for the other types, and that is really the only reason I bother mentioning it.

"Next is elder magic, dark, if you want to call it that. Like anima, it relies on spirits, but not the ones any sane person would go and commune with. They are malicious entities who do not much enjoy being forced into submission, and will not hesitate to ravage the mind and soul of those who would dare try to control them. One must bind them with magical constructs, ridiculous things that make natural philosophy seem like child's play. They must be carefully contrived from a thousand equations and theorems, and a single error could well result in death. Of course the result of a successful spell is unsurpassable; for when one controls time, space, and life itself, what could oppose you? Darkness is the magic of knowledge, and like true knowledge, very difficult to find despite its beauty.

"Often it is contrasted with light magic, even if such a comparison is completely wrong, probably because of the old tradition of combining it with religion. Yes, belief in some mythical omnipotent being who, for reasons unknown, wants nothing more than to help you, is one path towards light magic, but the driving force behind is nothing more than one's own willpower. They call it faith, but there is legend of a great saint who mastered light magic through nothing more than an unshakeable belief in his own beauty. I myself learned it through an unshakeable belief that I could in fact learn it; it is that simple. But however you should choose to master light magic, the end result is still control over exactly what you would expect from it: light.

"As for staves, they can operate on any of the three principles of knowledge, wisdom, and will, and thus virtually any spellcaster can come to use them with time.

"Now I can explain all this as much as I want, but discussing anything more than the basics is a bit pointless until you've actually used the magic. And on that note, I think we need to go outside."

They did just that, Morcere stopping to gather a few tomes and staves first, and began to practice with these new and unfamiliar weapons. Both received a Lightning tome, but only Lasentis got a Heal stave while Ephidel instead received Flux.

"Quickly now," said Morcere. "We're just doing a quick test to see where you are now, but I want it to be done as quickly as possible. Even I need to sleep eventually, and it is rather late."

Ephidel began with Flux. He opened the tome and began looking through the arcane symbols, letters and numerals both, and slowly started to make sense of them. It took a fair length of time, for not only was the text unfamiliar, but it was also far longer than most anima tomes he had used, and the incantations more complex and inflexible.

But he was sure that he had performed it correctly, and indeed he was rewarded with a black disc of energy forming before him, coercing some unfortunate dark spirit into obedience. A black orb appeared before him, oozing downward into the ground, and Ephidel released the seal and the spirit with it, though he continued to feed his own energy to the spell. The black tentacles then reappeared several yards ahead, twisting together with terrible force, rending space itself before finally dissipating. Ephidel turned to see that Lasentis too had finished her spell, the blue light of the Heal stave fading out of existence.

"Good," said Morcere. "Now try your light tomes."

They did so, both unleashing a kaleidoscope of lights, then Morcere gave them a set of more advanced tomes and staves and had them test those as well. Ephidel managed to use Nosferatu and Shine, while Lasentis cast Divine and Recover. That was where they stopped–it was well past midnight now–and Morcere left for the palace.

"You can stay here from now on," he said before parting. "I'll make sure that if anyone looks for you, they won't be doing it here. Anyways, I'll be coming back tomorrow and every other night and teach you magic then; I'll be a bit too busy as king during the day, but I will find the time. Goodnight."

They bid their farewells and the two new archsages headed back inside as Morcere warped away. No matter what setbacks there may have been, it had been a good day for Ephidel. This was the kind of power he was searching for.

–––Author's Notes–––

I actually managed to complete this in a reasonable length of time; somehow I now have more time to write now that classes have begun, but we shall see if this pattern holds in the future.

I will stop begging for reviews in the Author's Notes section after this point; I think most of you already have a fairly good idea of how much it means to me by now and I won't be convincing anyone else. Many thanks to those of you who have left them for me.

When I claimed Vissara to be a distant relative of Elimine, note that this does not necessarily mean a direct relation, and she is probably closer to cousin fifty times removed or something of that nature. Not that such a thing is important to the story itself, merely that I cannot imagine anyone with the title of 'saint' in a religion as strong as Eliminism would ever have children [even if there is no mention of any form of celibacy in canon].

I believe that I forgot to mention this way back in Chapter 2 when it first occurred, but those magic-repelling runes on Ephidel's cloak are not explicitly stated in canon, but one can see a number of interesting symbols [they mean nothing in any language I know of] in his official artwork.

The saint that Morcere mentions is in fact Duke Oliver Tanas, in addition to being half of the reason I had Morcere give a lesson on the different types of magic.


End file.
